He might suffer from tinnitus, but, bowing to a request from dear friend Miss Sophie, Admiral von Schneider still vigorously rings a bell. Ding!, and he’s loopy again.
Review: Her friends might have died but she’s still having them over for ‘Dinner’
The Jungle Theater is again staging “Dinner for One,” the wryly funny show about an elegant dame who has imaginary friends over to celebrate life.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
December 12, 2024 at 7:00PM
Von Schneider is one of the four imaginary humans (the show also has an invisible kitty) brought to breezy and boozy life by Jim Lichtscheidl in “Dinner for One,” the mashup of slapstick physical comedy, live classical music and improvised wit that has returned to the Jungle Theater, where it premiered last year.
Lichtscheidl and partner Sun Mee Chomet, who plays Miss Sophie, are sources of delightful theatricality and comic invention in this American import based on a 1934 European sketch. Chomet is the contained, straight man to Lichtscheidl’s frantic and manic mad hatter, and therein lies the rub.
“Dinner” is not an on-the-nose holiday work. But because of its felicitousness, musicality and light froth, it has an air of warmth and celebratory joy.
The show was co-created by clever director Christina Baldwin with Lichtscheidl, Chomet and Minnesota Orchestra violinist Emilia Mettenbrink. Mettenbrink and pianist Dan Chouinard provide live accompaniment.
The action revolves around a table. Decades ago, Miss Sophie would have friends over for a grand, multicourse meal to mark her birthday. But von Schneider, Sir Toby, Mr. Pomeroy and Mr. Winterbottom are all dead now.
No matter, she still dresses up like an elegant empress (courtesy of costume designer Ora Jewell-Busche) to celebrate. And James loyally obliges her imagination, serving the courses of the meal and also playing each of her guests while downing their drinks.
The laughs come from the comic invention as Lichtscheidl, in quicksilver fashion, switches among the characters, each vividly sketched. The flirty Mr. Winterbottom, a poet, gives her a verse whose title is selected from audience submissions.
Lichtscheidl does an improvised rhyme using the suggested title.
Sir Toby, an old theater hand, also has a thing for language. Actually, he’s prone to malapropisms and Wildean double entendres. His cheer to Miss Sophie — “As we say in the theater, may your parts grow larger and may you always have a hand on your opening.”
“Dinner” is suffused with lots of silliness but also warmth and heart. For it’s a show about love, loss and loneliness and how we cope with the inevitable march of life.
The menu calls for mulligatawny soup served with a dry sherry, North Sea haddock with white wine, chicken with Champagne and fruit for dessert, accompanied by port.
But with comic flair and wry sweetness, this “Dinner” fills the spirit.
‘Dinner for One’
When: 7:30 p.m. Wed., Fri. & Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Ends Jan. 5.
Where: Jungle Theater, 2951 Lyndale Av. S., Mpls.
Tickets: $15-$95 or pay-as-you-can. Jungletheater.com.
The Jungle Theater is again staging “Dinner for One,” the wryly funny show about an elegant dame who has imaginary friends over to celebrate life.
