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"I know this meal is about your brilliant success, but it's my statement, my creation like Frankenstein's monster," Paige tells her husband, Lars, as "Dinner" gets under way. Wasatch Theatre Company is giving Moira Buffini's dark British comedy its regional premiere in a production that tries its hardest to make the play appetizing, but that monster keeps rearing its ugly head.

Acidly charming Paige (Stacey Jenson) has organized a dinner party to celebrate the publication of "Beyond Belief," a "guidebook to life" by Lars (Nicholas Dunn). She hasn't read the book, but her guests have varying reactions. Wynne (Ali Lente), an old friend and artist, describes herself as a "provocative eroticist" and featured a portrait of her boyfriend's genitals in her art exhibit. Needless to say, the boyfriend is no longer with her. She loves the book and keeps quoting from it.

So does Hal (Daniel McLeod), a nihilistic microbiologist who works for the Ministry of Health. His wife, Sian (Alyssa Franks), a television "newsbabe," describes the book as a "smorgasbord of syllogisms," and this appraisal hits closer to home.

Lars continually pontificates on the book's philosophy: Life is a "psychological apocalypse" from which we need a "cosmic wakeup call." "Do you want to consume or not?" he asks. "Do you want to eat or have things eat you?" Rather unpalatable dinner-party conversation, and he keeps throwing around phrases like "aspirational fantasy" and "inspired resignation."

The only thing more perverse than Lars' book is Paige's menu. The starter is "primordial soup," an "irrepressible force of nature." "The leftovers breed," she tells her horrified guests. The main course is "apocalypse of lobster." The lobsters are still alive, and the guests must boil them or release them into a pond. And the "just desserts" consist of "frozen waste" that Paige has scavenged from the garbage.

The play's other two characters are Mike (Carlos Nobelza Posas), an unexpected, working-class guest who just wants to use the phone and gets incorporated into the madness, and a stiff, stony-silent waiter (Gordon Dunn), whose icy stares unnerve everyone but Paige and whose real purpose only becomes apparent at the surprising end of the play.

The cast and director Jim Martin valiantly search for the humor in Buffini's pretentious pastiche of a play, but it's difficult even to figure out what she's satirizing. Perhaps you have to be British to get it. The performances are lively — the women do particularly well — and Martin prevents things from bogging down completely by keeping everyone in motion.

"Dinner" has a stylish look. The mirror that backs Kit Anderton's formal dining-room set offers the cast ample opportunity to primp, and Brittany Restrepo's atmospheric lighting gives this dinner party from hell a surreal sensibility. Michael Nielsen's elegant costumes, especially Paige's striking red dress, add a touch of class.

"Dinner" has an endless supply of smart, sophisticated banter, but it's essentially hollow at the heart. "We're all at the epicenter of our own universe," Wynne knowingly proclaims. If these characters were less self-indulgent and bitter and a little more human, we might enjoy being there with them. —

'Dinner' is served

Despite intelligent performances and confident direction, Wasatch Theatre Company's "Dinner" proves perversely unpalatable.

When • Reviewed on April 21; plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. through May 7

Where • Studio Theatre at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, 138 W. Broadway, Salt Lake City

Tickets • $20; 801-355-ARTS or http://www.arttix.org for tickets and http://www.wasatchtheatre.org for more information; contains adult language and situations

Running time • Two hours (including an intermission)