It has been said for many centuries that the proper study of mankind is man, yet some people not only resist that suggestion, they positively pride themselves on a lack of self-examination.

The theater is an excellent tool for holding up a mirror, in which human kind can examine our own qualities. Even an event such as an episode of ”Keeping Up with the Kardashians” can teach people how they do not want to appear in other’s eyes, and why not. Still, if a performing company wants to sell tickets, billing their performance as an excellent opportunity to study and learn is probably going to be counter to their best interests.

Months ago, I promised to devote this column to the Lucille Ball Little Theatre of Jamestown. Not long ago, an event took place which made them unable to use it, and that opened an opening for another subject to be examined.

Since we can’t do the entire column for the good folks at Little Theatre, let me take this opportunity to encourage you to take in one of the performances of their newest production: Neil Simon’s hit comedy ”The Odd Couple.”

Performances begin on Friday of the coming week, and will take place Friday and Saturday evenings at 8 p.m., and Sunday afternoons at 2 p.m., through Feb. 9. Individual tickets are $20. Students with identification who are age 22 or younger may be admitted for half that price. For additional information about their production, stop by, in person to their box office, which is immediately to the right of the main entrance of the theater, or phone them at 483-1095, or check out their web site at lucilleballlittletheatre.org. The box office is open from 12:30-4:30 p.m., most business days, except Mondays.

Meanwhile, another production is about to take place, and it broke my heart, originally, to need to deny their request for the focus of this column, but I had already promised it to LBLTJ.

On Feb. 7-8, two performances will be taking place in two Chautauqua County communities. The presenting company will be the Chautauqua County Gurney Players, who for the past three years have performed plays by A.R. Gurney in our area, for the benefit of local charities. In 2012, they performed ”Love Letters.” In 2013, the subject was ”Ancestral Voices.” This year, the company will be performing the play which is often described as the masterpiece of Gurney’s extensive oeuvre: ”The Dining Room.”

The play is the history of a large, elegant, formal dining room, in an upper middle class home, in Western New York. Beginning in the 19th century and passing in time through the present day, this dining room is the focus of family events, from joyous celebrations to tragic events, to the mischief of children, to the feebleness of old age. There are six actors in the company, and they each portray 10 different roles.

Each actor performs roles of children, of adolescents, of adults and senior citizens. It is a challenge. As is the custom of the Gurney Players, the performances will be staged readings. That means that the actors will perform with suggestions of properties and costumes, and with scripts in their hands. Since a full production of community theater, typically requires approximately five weeks of rehearsal and preparation time, the members of this company would be unable to participate.

In part, because of the New Play Workshops, which have been presented by the Chautauqua Theater Company for the past several summers, area audiences have become used to staged readings, and have learned how possible it is to enjoy the meat of a good play, even without appetizers and garnishes.

Let me tell you about each of the coming performances, then something about the actors and personnel of the production, and finally, more about the play itself.

IN WESTFIELD

”The Dining Room” will have its opening performance Feb. 7, at Eason Hall, on Elm Street in Westfield. All the actors, the director, and many other people who will be doing necessary things for the production have donated their time and talents. One supporter has even donated the use of her dining room furniture, for the performance.

There are some expenses, such as rental of the performing space, the cost of the meal and things which cannot be avoided, but once they are paid, all the money gained by this performance will go to the Westfield Memorial Hospital Foundation, to help with expenses of renovating their emergency room.

The audience is invited to arrive by 6 p.m., where they will be offered a buffet supper, prepared by Andriaccio’s Restaurant, with appetizers, main course and wine, for those who are legally eligible to have it. When they have finished eating, the play will begin. During intermission, dessert and coffee will be served, and then the play will be completed.

Tickets for this performance cost $30 per person. Purchase them by phoning 793-2338. Because of the need to prepare meals, advance reservations are absolutely necessary. Please phone by Feb. 3. Those whose schedule makes it impossible to attend are encouraged to make the relatively short drive to Jamestown, on the following evening, and vice versa.

IN JAMESTOWN

The concluding performance of the production will take place Feb. 8, at the Robert H. Jackson Center, in Jamestown. Although the official address of the center is 305 East Fourth St., in downtown. The Carl Cappa Theater, where the play will be performed, is located at the intersection of Fifth Street and Prendergast Avenue. The Jackson Center stretches for a full block, along Prendergast Avenue, and the main entrance is located roughly at the midpoint of that long stretch.

Again, the audience is encouraged to arrive by 6 p.m. A light supper, including appetizers, main course, and wine for those who are eligible, will be served, and may be eaten while sitting in the downstairs dining room of the center. When the eating is done, the audience will be welcomed upstairs to the Cappa Theater, for the performance. At intermission, dessert and coffee will be served. The meal will be prepared by Incredible Edibles Catering.

Tickets for this performance are also $30 per person. Purchase Jamestown tickets by phoning 763-0578. Again, because meals need to be planned in advance, reservations must be made by Feb. 3. The production in 2012 was completely sold out, so early reservations are encouraged.

Once necessary costs are met, for the Jamestown production, money earned from tickets will go to the Chautauqua County Chapter of the National Society of Arts and Letters, where it will go to support scholarships given each year by the chapter to young artists, for the cost of study and training in their arts.

THE COMPANY

BOB MCCLURE: The Chautauqua County Gurney Players had their origin in Chautauqua Play Readers, the organization for play reading which was founded at Chautauqua Institution, by those who live there year-round.

The founder of that organization is Bob McClure. McClure will be directing ”The Dining Room.” He has performed in this area with the Chautauqua Theater Company and with the Bunbury Theater, of Jamestown. He became intrigued with the plays of Gurney because of how accurately he believes they capture the values, the actions, and the remarkable way of speaking, of people in Far Western New York State.

The six actors, because each plays so many different roles, are described in the script of the play as ”Actor #1,” ”Actress #2,” etc. I’m going to start with the men, because the company’s only professional actor is Actor #1, and I’ll save the lovely ladies for last:

TIM NEWELL: Actor #1 is Westfield native Tim Newell, who is the only professional actor in the company. Newell has been seen across New York state in the one-person play which was written for him, ”Mr. Benny,” about actor Jack Benny. Making his headquarters in Buffalo, Newell has been seen in roles which include Richard III, Iago, Claudius and Dogberry, to name a few. As a student, he performed at the Lucille Ball Little Theatre of Jamestown, and with the Uncommoners of Jamestown Community College.

In addition to his acting talents, Newell is an accomplished visual artist, and has had solo exhibits of his paintings in sites as disparate as San Juan, Puerto Rico and the gallery of the James Prendergast Library, in Jamestown.

DON KIRSCH: Actor #2 is Don Kirsch, a resident of Erie, Pa., who frequently performs in the various companies in that city, as well as in commercials and in films. Among his best-known roles have been Otto Frank in ”The Diary of Anne Frank,” Father Merwin, in ”The Exorcist” and Norman Thayer Jr., in ”On Golden Pond.”

He also rides horses, swims, skis, plays bridge and is a highly accomplished tap dancer.

ROBERT PLYLER: Actor #3 has been performing since the age of 6, when he was cast as ”Old King Cole,” in a children’s theater production. He studied theater, singing, piano and pipe organ at Allegheny College, where he earned B.A. and M.A. degrees. He moved to Jamestown in 1971, to begin a teaching career at Maple Grove High School, where he remained until retirement, in 2003. During that time, he also taught at Mercyhurst College, in Erie, and at JCC. Since 1976, he has been the arts critic for The Post-Journal, and he has written the column you are now reading, since 1980.

MARY LEE TALBOT: Actress #1 has both directed and appeared in several productions by the Chautauqua Play Readers., including the original version of this play. Among the plays she has directed is ”Clybourne Park,” and among her roles have been Tracy Lord in ”The Philadelphia Story,” and Liz Jones in ”The Snow Ball,” by A.R. Gurney. She is an ordained Presbyterian Minister, and is currently working with two congregations in Western New York.

JANE STIRNIMAN: Actress #2 is a retired surgeon, a world-wide traveler, including several postings as a medical missionary to the African nation of Malawi, and an accomplished actor, whose comic performances, especially, have been known to bring down the house. She is known at Chautauqua, where she is a year-round resident, for her huge and stunning garden, which attracts human visitors and cats, for different reasons.

MERLE SZYDLO: Actress #3 started life as a music major, who performed in the orchestra of so many theatrical productions, she vowed to one day be on the opposite side of the footlights and now she is. She has performed with the Uncommoners at JCC, and in the casts of the Spoon River Project, which was performed for several consecutive summers, in Lake View Cemetery. She is retired from a career in the Civil Service, and is currently an active volunteer for the Audubon Center and Sanctuary.

Although not able to commit the time necessary for a full production, all these busy people have given many, many hours to providing you with a fine evening of good theater.

ABOUT THE PLAY

Most of us are products of a culture which is rapidly passing into history. Some critics of the play have ranted on about how much better things are today, but I’m not sure Gurney would agree. If you see the production, you may or may not do so.

All but two of our 44 presidents have been what is commonly called WASPs, or white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. The exceptions: John Kennedy was Roman Catholic, and Barack Obama is half-African American. In part, because WASP culture praises and admires people who do not call attention to themselves, however, the academic world is full of far more extensive and better examinations of other cultures, than it is of our own.

Albert Ramsdell Gurney Jr. grew up in Buffalo, and it seems as though from his very early youth, he recognized that wealthy, educated people in Western New York have a unique way of speaking, and live their lives in a way which is often substantially different from the majority of people in the modern world.

Many of us have never had the difference between our own lives and those of others, pointed out to us, and Gurney delights in teaching us to look at ourselves.

Dozens of writers, including playwrights, novelists and poets, have been intrigued by the wild variety of things which happen in a single room. Walls and furniture bear witness to both the everyday dramas and the grand events of people’s lives. People might hold a birthday party in a room, where two days later, someone might die. The inter-lacing histories of a particular place provides a constant perspective on an ever-changing culture.

There are 18 events in ”The Dining Room.” A father scowls across the breakfast table over the grammar and the behavior of a young son, for example. A couple steps away from their children’s birthday party to discuss whether or not they will abandon their families and run away together. A young man in graduate school asks his aunt to display the full array of china and crystal which once regularly decked the central table, but each is shocked by the very different reasons for which the other wants to see the display.

Some of the play is very funny. Other parts of it may be a bit too close to home for comfort. Some of it is wonderfully touching. I suspect that you, like I, will come away from the evening with a better understanding of what is and what could be. And, if it’s a bit more comforting, I would have to say that while I see a great deal of Jamestown and Dunkirk, in Gurney’s plays, Buffalo gets center stage, and our area is more on the outskirts.

The cost is extremely reasonable, especially because it includes both the supper and the performance. You can help the hospital and/or the scholarships. I hope to see you there.

WINKS

Three members of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra were recently invited to return to Carnegie Hall, in New York City, to help make up an orchestra selected from the finest ensembles in the U.S., to perform a concert which was titled ”Shostakovich for the Children of Syria.” Other participating orchestras include the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and many more.

The concert was a benefit performance for the Doctors Without Borders organization, in which doctors from all around the world donate their time to provide desperately needed medical care for people in crisis situations around the world, especially for children. At this time, there are 2.2 million citizens of Syria who have been forced by the civil war in that country to flee their homes and take refuge in neighboring countries.

The principal work performed by the ensemble is Shostakovich’s ”Leningrad” Symphony, a work composed by the Russian musician while enduring both the persecution of Stalin, and the 900-day siege of Leningrad by the troops of the Third Reich.

Buffalo musicians in the ensemble were violinist Deborah Greitzer, bassonist Glenn Einschlag and oboist Brian Greene.

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Buffalo Laboratory Theatre will present a production of the classic play ”Cyrano,” at 710 Main St., the former Studio Arena Theatre, in downtown Buffalo.

Performances are Feb. 6-23. Tickets are $36.50 for the general public, and $18.50 for students. To purchase them, phone 800-745-3900, or go to www.sheas.org and click on 710 Main.

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From time to time, we print our policies for your information.

Any organization wanting a performance or exhibition reviewed should request, preferably in writing, that The Post-Journal review. Sending us information about an event will get you an announcement. You must say some version of “Please review this event,” to get a review.

Should two events happen at the same time, the sponsor requesting first will be reviewed. We politely ask that you not send requests earlier than the first day of the month before the month in which your event will happen.It is virtually impossible to keep track of requests from a year in the past.

When performances are religious in intent, the newspaper can not evaluate their religious value, only their artistic qualities.

Children and youth through high school will not be reviewed, and if they appear in a performance with adults, may be named, but will not be evaluated.

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