Couples Counseling
Two veterans of The Brady Bunch reunite for the new play Dinner at Five, a very un-Brady take on relationships.
Julie Pendray / January 22, Arts & Entertainment
Christopher Knight of The Brady Bunch fame plays a scene from Dinner at Five with Caryn Richman from The New Gidget.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY DEAN BLAGG
Christopher Knight and Lloyd Schwartz, who helped make The Brady Bunch one of the most-loved TV sitcoms of the 1970s, will team up for a most unlikely stage play Jan. 24 through Feb. 24 at Indian Wells Theater in Palm Desert.
Dinner at Five is a comedy that asks, “How about wife-swapping?” This might seem an odd topic for the résumés of Knight and Schwartz, juxtaposed against the squeaky-clean TV show. Knight, who back then played middle son Peter Brady, appears in Dinner at Five as Eddie, half of one of the curious couples. Schwartz — who worked as a writer and dialog coach on The Brady Bunch, which his father, Sherwood Schwartz, created — wrote this new play and directs it.
“When I read part one of the play, I phoned Lloyd and said, ‘You’re a sick man,’” Knight recalls. “But he told me, ‘Keep reading.’ Things change in part two. It’s not what you think.”
The play involves after-dinner conversation among two mature couples, in which one character suggests “mixing things up.” “Switching partners? That’s for young couples,” says one husband. His wife retorts, “Why should they have all the fun?”
The couples do change houses, but don’t expect sexy romps from people who can barely give each other high-fives without joint pain. There are twists and turns in the plot that eventually lead to … well, you’ll have to go and see.
“Don’t be offended, and don’t give up at intermission,” is all Knight will say.
Schwartz says he incorporated his and his wife’s real-life idiosyncrasies into the characters, though he’s quick to say that the resemblance in their behavior ends there — he and Barbara, married 42 years, have never wife-swapped, he stresses.
Read the complete review in Palm Springs Life Magazine ~ Arts & Entertainment