CUTE MEETS CUTE, AGAIN

Rendered with a rom-com frame around a night of emotional archaeology, Douglas Lyons’s Table 17, briskly staged by Zhailon Levingston, wants to be irresistible, and for the most part it is. The premise is simple but well-served: two years after their breakup, previously engaged Jada (Gail Bean) and Dallas (Biko Eisen-Martin) reunite for part dinner date, part reckoning at Bianca’s Restaurant, a slick, warmly lit bistro. The evening toggles between present discomfort and flashbacks to the relationship’s slow detonation, all staged on Jason Sherwood’s clever, two-level set that lets memory and reality bleed into each other. It’s a compact 85-minute structure, but it gives the play enough room to explore what remains after the breakup dust settles.

Gail Bean, Biko Eisen-Martin and Michael RishawnMichael Rishawn and Gail Bean

Eisen-Martin is ridiculously adorable playing Dallas with a magnetic ache that hints at everything unsaid. Bean is appealing, if not always fully shaded, though she sharpens Jada’s self-protective edges effectively. But the show’s stealth weapon is Michael Rishawn as River, the femme, take-no-prisoners host whose slinky authority and razor-timed interjections keep the temperature up. He’s a live-wire presence, the rare comic agitator who actually deepens the stakes rather than deflating them (Rishawn does the same playing a airline attendant attracted to co-worker Jada).

Biko Eisen-MartinGail Bean and Biko Eisen-Martin

The play regularly breaks the fourth wall, with characters addressing patrons at onstage tables and the house outright—an invitation to talk back, a gesture the Geffen (like many regionals) hopes will resonate with and help grow its Black subscriber base. At the performance I attended, the device landed more as commentary than conversation with viewers, but Table 17 still delivers an easy charm and tidy emotional payoff. It’s cute by design, but “cute” undersells the polish and the emotional nibs that Lyons slips in around the edges. It’s the trio’s chemistry and the production’s glossy efficiency that will leave you entertained and a little warmed, making the evening go down smooth.

Biko Eisen-Martin, Michael Rishawn and Gail Bean

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photos by Jeff Lorch
poster photo by Corey Olsen

Table 17
Geffen Playhouse, 10866 Le Conte Avenue in Westwood
85 minutes, no intermission
Wed-Fri at 8; Sat at 3 & 8; Sun at 2 & 7 (check for variances)
ends on December 7, 2025
for tickets ($36-$139), call 310.208.5454 or visit Geffen Playhouse

for more shows, visit Theatre in LA

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