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Steel Beam serves up satisfying drama 'The Big Meal'

If you ask different people to describe Dan LeFranc's generational drama “The Big Meal,” you're bound to get wildly disparate responses ranging from: “epic” to “short,” “mundane” to “meaningful,” “depressing” to “uplifting.”

And all of these descriptions are arguably valid for “The Big Meal,” which racked up rapturous critical raves when it debuted in 2011 at American Theater Company in Chicago before it played off-Broadway in New York the following year.

Now “The Big Meal” is making its suburban debut at Steel Beam Theatre in St. Charles, providing another welcome opportunity to experience LeFranc's quick-paced and contemplative drama. Though director Bernie Weiler's St. Charles production isn't as strong as the Chicago original, Steel Beam's “The Big Meal” still has the insight and power to move audiences repeatedly to tears during its economical 80-minute running time.

LeFranc sets the play entirely in a series of anonymous bars and family restaurants, commencing with the speedy romantic courtship of waitress Nicole by her admirer, Sam (initially Samantha Chmara and Cullen Rogers). Within the blink of an eye, Sam and Nicole are married, tolerating in-laws and dining out with petulant, whiny kids.

This is all part of LeFranc's rapid and choppy style for “The Big Meal.” Though initially disorienting, the play speeds through years of ups and downs in Nicole and Sam's relationship via fragmentary dialogue that is in equal measures trifling and weighty.

LeFranc's “The Big Meal” also applies a canny casting device where you see Sam, Nicole and their descendants literally embodying the notion that people “become their parents.” That's because the entire ensemble assumes many roles depending upon the age-appropriateness of the characters as they age.

Director Weiler could have sped up the pace to make the play snappier, and the drab set design lacks the feel of a real restaurant. Plus, a more sophisticated lighting design from Pete Steele would have helped to better differentiate the play's jagged jumps in time.

But for LeFranc's all-important symbolic device announcing when a death strikes Nicole and Sam's family, Weiler and Steele set the right tone with an uncomfortable and moving dimming effect.

The play's best acting comes from those with the most life experience such as Richard Westphal, Patricia Rataj, Frank L. Wiltse and Jeanne Scurek ­— and it helps that their age-appropriate characters have juicier dramatic and comic dialogue to sink their teeth into. In playing the different generations of kids and young adults, Larissa Catalano and Ethan Isaacson are great as the often annoying and fussy children, while Rogers and Chmara convince as rebellious teenagers.

Most importantly, the cast is able to register LeFranc's grand scheme of “The Big Meal” to express the unpredictability of life through its many joys and disappointments. There's also plenty of humor as LeFranc shows some of the quirks that get passed down through the generations and the universal parent/child/sibling sniping that could have easily been lifted from your own family's history of eating out.

But what makes “The Big Meal” so significant is its speedy structure, which serves as a symbolically profound meditation on life's unfair fragility and the cruel stealthiness of time. Steel Beam's performers enliven LeFranc's material and take it to where it needs to go emotionally to hit home.

Richard Westphal and Patricia Rataj portray the central characters of Sam and Nicole in later life in the suburban debut of Dan LeFranc's "The Big Meal" at Steel Beam Theatre in St. Charles. Courtesy of Steel Beam Theatre
The suburban debut of Dan LeFranc's "The Big Meal" at Steel Beam Theatre in St. Charles features, from left, Richard Westphal, Patricia Rataj, Jeanne Scurek, Larissa Catalano (standing), Frank L. Wiltse (sitting), Ethan Isaacson (standing), Cullen Rogers and Samantha Chmara. Courtesy of Steel Beam Theatre
Jeanne Scurek and Patricia Rataj portray a variety of roles in the suburban debut of Dan LeFranc's "The Big Meal" at Steel Beam Theatre in St. Charles. Courtesy of Steel Beam Theatre

“The Big Meal”

★ ★ ★

<b>Location:</b> Steel Beam Theatre, 111 W. Main St., St. Charles, (630) 587-8521 or <a href="http://steelbeamtheatre.com">steelbeamtheatre.com</a>

<b>Showtimes:</b> 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday; through March 15

<b>Running time:</b> About 80 minutes, no intermission

<b>Tickets:</b> $23-$28

<b>Parking:</b> Nearby parking garage and street parking

<b>Rating:</b> For teens or older, features adult language and sexual conversations

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