Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, the sensational latest from Santa Monica’s Ruskin Group Theatre, proves as relevant in 2022 as it was sixty-five years ago when Katharine Hepburn won the second of her four Best Actress Oscars in the ground-breaking Stanley Kramer movie classic.

Hepburn and Spencer Tracy starred on the silver screen as Christina and Matt Drayton, a couple of well-off San Franciscans whose lifelong liberalism is tested when their twenty-three-year-old daughter Joanna announces plans to marry the man of her dreams, a world-renowned physician who, to her parents’ scarcely concealed dismay, is a person of color (and the color is not white).

Since it was then still illegal in sixteen states for men and women of different races to wed, it’s perhaps no wonder that Matt and Christina have real concerns about the likelihood of a happily ever after for a fresh-out-of-college Joanna and Dr. John Prentice, no matter how educated, esteemed, and movie-star handsome the African-American MD may be.

Not only that, but since John is about to leave for Geneva the following morning for three months of medical research, and since Joanna has absolutely no intention of being left behind when he goes, that doesn’t give the smitten couple much time to secure her parents’ blessing, and John is insistent he won’t marry Joanna without Matt and Christina’s consent.

Adding to the complications are art gallery owner Christina’s snooty coworker Hillary, Matt’s frequent golf buddy Monsignor Ryan, and the Drayton’s longtime domestic Tilly, a black woman born and raised in the Jim Crow South, who just might be the most tongue-clickingly disapproving of them all.

If times had changed more than they have in the past fifty-five years, Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner would be nothing more than a quaint period piece of bygone days when racism still reigned supreme.

That such is unfortunately not the case is just one reason Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner still packs a punch at the Ruskin under Lita Gaithers Owens’ pitch-perfect direction.

It helps enormously that Todd Kreidler’s script, based on William Rose’s Oscar-winning screenplay, is as laugh-packed as it is packed with complex characters and emotion-packed moments where their hearts and beliefs are tested.

Making the play’s L.A. debut all the more exciting is the opportunity to see a new group of actors put their personal stamps on roles that prior to Kreidler’s play had been performed by a grand total of one actor per part.

And what a cast director Owens has assembled for the play’s Los Angeles Premiere.

Brad Greenquist (a powder keg of a Brad) and Lee Garlington (steely perfection as Christina) deliver performances rich in nuance and power, Mary Pumper (a luminous Joanna) and Vincent Washington II (a suave, powerhouse John) are two talent-and-charisma-blessed stars in the making, and the fabulous Vickilyn Reynolds (Matilda) steals every scene she’s in as a woman who’s probably never held her tongue in her life, and isn’t about to start now.

Paul Denk (a wise and witty Monsignor Ryan), Mouchette van Helsdingen (a Hillary whose accent is either deliciously British or just simply pretentious), and Renn Woods (wise and wonderful as Mary Prentice) are every bit as splendid in smaller roles, and audiences attending the performance reviewed here got to see last-minute on-book understudy Alex Morris (John Sr.), as magnificent here as he was when he won raves as Joe Keller in the Matrix Theatre production of All My Sons.

Scenic designer John Iacovelli achieves the miraculous in squeezing an elegant living room, dining room, and terrace (and even glimpses of Christina’s office) onto a matchbox stage, aided greatly by Hamilton Matthews’ array of props.

Michael Mullen’s costumes are period perfection as always, and with Edward Salas doing dynamic double duty as both lighting and sound designer, audiences are treated to the same caliber production design you’d see at the Pasadena Playhouse or the Geffen, albeit on a much smaller scale.

Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner is produced by John Ruskin and Michael R. Myers. Nicole Millar is production stage manager and Matthews is assistant stage manager. Judith Borne is publicist.

Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner is the 110th productions I’ve reviewed since theaters started reopening in the middle of last year, and it ends StageSceneLA’s 2021-2022 season on a “One Of The Year’s Best” high note. This is one stroll down memory land you won’t want to miss.

Ruskin Group Theatre, 3000 Airport Avenue, Santa Monica.
www.ruskingrouptheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
June 25, 2022
Photos: Amelia Mulkey

Tags: Los Angeles Theater Review, Ruskin Group Theatre, Todd Kreidler, William Rose