AR Gurney’s THE DINING ROOM
Pork Pie Making Day
“Your table needs to be reglued, rescrewed, and renewed.”
Paul in AR Gurney’s The Dining Room
One Christmas’s pork pie, a recipe that has been in my family for at least eight or nine generations
Samford Theatre opened the 1991 season with AR Gurney’s The Dining Room. In18 episodic scenes, the comic drama focuses on the differing natures of the room where families do — or do not — eat. Any number of actors can play the 57 characters, and for that reason, it is produced often by high schools and universities. It takes place from 1935 to 1980 in a non-sequential order, and the table is actually a metaphor for change as characters come and go around its edges.
The work explores stories of American White Anglo-Saxon Protestant families. Some scenes concern the table and other furniture, some portray family celebrations enjoyed in the room, and others explore the upper-middle class culture of the late twentieth century.
A grandmother struggles with remembering who her family members are. A sister and brother fight about who gets the dining room set. A young man tries to decide with a real estate agent if he wants to buy a house with a (dining) room he will never use.
“Your table needs to be re-glued, re-screwed, and renewed,” says Paul, speaking not only about the piece of furniture, but also of Margery the divorcee who is flirting with him under the table — as well as societal changes taking place in the early 1980s. The overall theme of Gurney’s play echoes our culture in the rise of the women’s movement and the ersatz decline of a patriarchal society, the ascendance of gender rights and the move away from connected family meals around a symbolically central table.
I am thinking of tables, table settings, and food during these holidays. A tradition in my family is to use our silverware every day, not solely for special occasions. In fact, I don’t have any other sort of flatware. I use one of my sets of china every day, and my antique, quirky, and greatly loved table linens as well.
My cousin, through her mother, the oldest sister in the family, inherited the 14-leaf dining table that was owned by our great-great-grandfather. It is a wonderful oak piece under which all twelve of my cousins and my brother and I played a game called “Butterscotch” as children. I use my breakfast room more than my more formal space, but I do often use the dining room.
On Christmas morning, it is where we eat pork pie, an English dish that has been in that same great-great-grandfather’s family for at least nine generations. We make the crust with beef kidney suet as the lubricator when we can still find it, and then stack it ten or more layers thick, alternating sausage and fresh pork. The crust is stuck all over with cloves, and the pie cooks for six hours, making wonderful fragrances waft through the house on December 23. The recipe came from Stockton-on-Tees, the town from which my great-great grandfather emigrated to America. After cooking, it is refrigerated and served cold for Christmas breakfast. Yum!
During this time of holidays, or every day: do you still use your dining table? Does it need re-gluing or re-screwing or renewing? How about your life?