Tables and Beds,
an unromantic comedy
Run Time: 90 minutes – 2 Act Play
Cast: 3 actors, 1 actress
Genre: Dramedy
Production History: In 2011, the Spanish version of “Tables and Beds, an unromantic comedy,” won the 4th Espectaculo Teatral Award among 80 plays from 12 countries. It opened to sold out audiences at “La Alternativa” Festival in Madrid. From Sala Triangulo the show toured around Spain, including Sala Cero in Seville, and the International Theater Festival of Cazorla, among many other venues. That same year, it came back to Madrid to Sala AZarte in Chueca. This fringe show became a run-away hit and it transferred to a commercial venue, Teatro Arenal, where it surpassed 100 shows, a very unusual feat for an independent alternative play in Spain. Reviews were unanimously positive around the country.
The English version of the play premiere in a reading in New York City in 2010. The following year it was read as a concert reading produced by Teatro Luna at Instituto Cervantes, Chicago, opening International Voices Project 2011. The US premiere of the play took place at Stage 773 (Chicago) in 2013.
Plot: When Mar, a reporter from Chicago, learns that a crime has been committed in her old home in Lake Geneva, she decides to go down memory lane to the places where years ago she was happy with her husband Thomas. Mar brings along Tedd, her best friend, who is also starting to feel the pains of boredom in his own relationship with Charlie.
The play takes place in the tables and beds that bring us together and pull us apart; places where past and present, reality and dreams collide; spaces that blur the fine line that separates platonic from erotic love, and romantic love from the profound affection of friendships.
This revision of the romantic comedy genre is a play about the comedy of falling in love and the tragedy of falling out of love. It’s a hilarious dissection of the constant conflict between passion and routine and a tribute to the unconditional love of life-long friends.
“An odd, smart and often surprising look at contemporary romantic yearning.” “With sophisticated lighting and set design, smooth transitions, and strong actors who comfortably bare their bodies, it’s easy to admire this production, which, in a presentation of marital woes, ever so skillfully avoids the minefield of clichés around gay and straight coupling.”
– Suzanne Scanlon, Time Out Chicago Magazine
“The play is modern, intelligent, fun and very well acted. “Tables and Beds” is about love in this day and age; love, the one we live, or the one we survive! And it’s about the effect that all our past experiences have on it.”
– Rafael Fuentes, El Imparcial
“You will have a great time with its intelligent humor, and will leave the theater with a good after-taste”
– Eva Saiz, El Pais
“A gentle plot, an artsy text, a sense of humor that is lighthearted and well-balanced… “Tables and Beds” receives wherever it goes a well deserved applause.”
– Diario de Jaen
“Intelligent humor and a text that reaches great heights”
– El Ideal
“Williams validates for a wide audience what critics had already said.”
– El Duende
“Tables and Beds” part from the romantic comedy goes well beyond the usual revisions of this genre. The playwright forces the blueprints of that genre to offer a truthful and recognizable picture of our most intimate feelings and the unavoidable effect that time has in our romantic relationships.”
– Premios Teatro Max
