You didn’t vote for Donald Trump. You don’t care who people love, what a person’s race is, or how they worship. You are as open-minded as a person can be. You are a modern-day Matt Drayton, a progressive-thinking character in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner now playing at Emmanuel United Methodist Church in Beltsville, Maryland. Well, maybe you are not a rich newspaper publisher in San Francisco like Drayton, but hopefully, you will find some similarity in political views
Matt, like many progressives, probably favors public transportation until the construction crews rip his familiar routes to shreds for what seems like an eternity to make “improvements.” Never mind pollution from the standing traffic, losses to businesses on the affected roads, or frustration of people living in the way of progress, these not-in-my-backyard conservatives must be ignored for the sake of progress.
In Drayton’s case, the issue is not transportation in the 21st century; it is race in 1967 America.
Drayton (Bill Bodie) is an established rich, white, ’60s liberal; he is pro-New Deal, pro-Civil Rights, anti-Jim Crow, and anti-Vietnam War. As a newspaper publisher Drayton has risen to the top of San Fransico society promoting his views. All of that is challenged when his daughter brings her new love in for a surprise visit.
The man Joanna Drayton (Samara Braverman) has fallen for is perfect on paper: a highly acclaimed, world-renowned research doctor. Dr. John Prentice (Joseph Battley II), however, is Black, surprise. Her parents never saw that coming and neither did the Negro maid.
Todd Kreidler’s 2012 stage adaptation of William Rose‘s screenplay works as a drama with humorous lines tossed in. Director John Cusumano adds entrances as character introductions to scenes to create more cohesion in the play.
Cusumano has filled the set with old furniture, a black rotary phone, three doors providing imagination for a larger home, and an opening for a terrace the troupe paints as a cactus garden for the audience to see. Rick Bergmann’s lighting adds a sense of more room than the set provides for the home.
Dr. Prentice wants Drayton’s approval to marry his lily-white daughter, who has no idea of what she, they, or their future children are getting into. Is the publisher simply a concerned father as he claims, or a first-class bigot and hypocrite as other characters point out?
The drama crashes against Drayton and his thinking. A couple of scenes hold the mirror against double standards. One features Monsignor Mike Ryan (Neil Swanson-Chrisman), who is a good friend of the seemingly irreligious publisher.
“It’s amazing to see a broken-down phony old liberal come face to face with his principles,” Ryan says, as the newspaper man attempts to justify his reaction. “I’ve always known that behind that fighting liberal façade, there must be some sort of reactionary bigot trying to get out.”
That is not what Drayton wants to hear, but it serves as a slow-working salve for the man’s reasoning. Later, the publisher is a sportswriter in his early days ringside at Yankee Stadium on June 22, 1938. He is covering the rematch between German Max Schmeling and Black American Joe Louis.
With World War II quickly approaching, Louis’ manhandling Schmeling in less than one round is a victory for America, one everyone was proud of, Drayton remembers. Or was it? Jim Crow still ruled in the South. Integration continued to separate men in the military. Culture divided America in 1938, 1967, and many say today.
The doctor remembers the Louis knockout a little differently. Extended family members were gathered at his grandmother’s house in Mississippi to listen to the Montgomery Ward’s radio set up in the yard. After the white man was counted out, Prentice’s older male cousins danced around the yard, throwing punches at each other. The doctor, who was probably about five at the time, wandered toward the adults. His father, John Prentice Sr. (Edward V. Crews), put the boy on his shoulder calling him Lil’ Brown. Louis was known as the Brown Bomber.
The acting in UpStage Artists production is a mix of veterans at their best, starting with Bodie. Sometimes rational, often irrational, when Matt Drayton asks his wife Christina, “When you imagined looking through Joey’s [Joanna’s] wedding pictures, did it ever, remotely-ever, occur to you that the man standing beside her would be like him?” Bodie’s delivery gives one the impression he’s questioning the audience.
Bodie keeps that journalist interrogatory that helps Drayton survive this crisis in his life throughout the performance.
Nancy Somers plays the multiple faces of Christina Drayton very well. Introduced as a chic gallery owner, her personal values are attacked by her daughter’s surprise. Somers’ character is more willing to adapt to a mother’s supporting role than what people will think. But Christina works through it on stage.
Battley’s doctor is a character without blemish. Historians argue that it was necessary for the film to fly in 1967, but more modern critics take issue. I sometimes wear a historian’s hat, but when I review, I attempt to call the work as I see it. For the most part, Battley’s Dr. Prentice was cool, calm, and understated. There were times when the good doctor’s emotion was stirred, showing he was a self-made man. One key is a monologue aimed at his father about their generations and differences. You, Dr. Prentice says, “think of yourself as a colored man. I think of myself as a man.”
Braverman made her UpStage debut in the difficult role of Joanna Drayton. Ms. Drayton, aka Joey, met the doctor while spending 10 days in Hawaii. However, her father was upset about Joey not calling on Sunday “because she always calls on Sunday.” Assuming the recent collage grad was vacationing, and not working on an internship in a hospital or university where the doctor was working, how did they meet? If that is a flaw, it is on the plot, or a dim reviewer, not the players.
Braverman sells her love for Prentice as the real deal, but it has only been 10 days. The character is determined. Is she a liberal fighting the bigotry and racism she sees in her father and future father-in-law, or is it affection? Joanna thinks it is love, and at 23 she can’t see why everyone else doesn’t recognize it.
Crews’ character thinks much like Matt Drayton minus the political haze. Prentice Sr., sees prejudice as real. He wants neither his son nor potential grandchildren to face the dangers interracial marriage will bring them. Mary Prentice (Pat Bullock) wholeheartedly agrees. She explains how heartbroken the doctor was after losing his wife and son in an auto accident years earlier. Mrs. Prentice never wants to see him suffer like that again.
That sense of suffering and humility unites the mothers. The Draytons lost a son. Although they are from different sides of the track, death doesn’t recognize ZIP codes.
Swanson-Chrisman brings his reliable acting to the Ryan role. When not playing devil’s advocate to Matt Drayton’s liberal sensibilities, the monsignor provides a touch of comic relief. Rev. Dr. Elizabeth L.E. Wiggins provides most of the humor as the maid Tillie Banks.
Hailing from Georgia, this Black woman is like a second mother to Joanna and a family protector. She has no problem letting the doctor know she thinks he’s a conman attempting to rob the Draytons and she will not let him do it.
Lisa Troshinsky plays another difficult but important role as Hillary St. George, Christina’s assistant at the gallery. St. George saves the day, cancelling a business lunch with a major client after the daughter’s “surprise” shortly before the luncheon. Mrs. Prentice is shocked and drinking heavily. Besides, what would the client think seeing the doctor in the home?
St. George is sacked after offering some unwarranted bigoted advice, but St. George’s counsel helped open Christina’s eyes.
I liked the play. It’s adapter Todd Kreidler’s big hit. But don’t go expecting to see the movie. Beltsville is not Hollywood. UpStage Artists charge only $10 a ticket because their mission is to make live performances affordable. The audience gets more than it pays for with Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.
Running Time: One hour and 40 minutes, with one ten-minute intermission.
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner plays through May 4, 2025 (Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 PM, Sundays at 2 PM), presented by UpStage Artists performing at Emmanuel United Methodist Church, 11416 Cedar Lane, Beltsville, MD. Purchase tickets ($10) online.
COVID Safety: Masks are recommended, not mandatory.
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
By Todd Kreidler
Based on the screenplay by William Rose
Directed by John Cusumano
CAST
Bill Bodie as Matt Draydon
Joseph Battley II as Dr. John Prentice
Samara Braverman as Joanna Drayton
Edward V. Crews as John Prentice Sr.
Nancy Somers as Christina Drayton
Neil Swanson-Chrisman as Monsignor Mike Ryan
Elizabeth L.E. Wiggins as Tillie Banks
Lisa Troshinsky as Hillary St. George
