Joy Dolo and Tyson Forbes Photo by Carly Caputo

The Jungle scheduled Dinner for One again for this holiday season, no doubt drawing repeat fans enamored with the show, as I was, along with new audience members. This time it is being performed by two different casts in rotation: Lichtscheidl, returning as James, co-stars with Baldwin as Miss Sophie at half the performances; Joy Dolo and Tyson Forbes, who understudied those two roles last year, appear at the other half of the performances.

I was intrigued to see how the play would work with actors who hadn't been involved in its creation and chose to attend a performance featuring Dolo and Tyson. Happily, though not surprisingly, Dinner for One continues to be an enchantment in new hands, though Dolo and Tyson bring different qualities to their portrayals of the once vibrant Miss Sophie, now aged and sparkling only in her memories, and her doggedly faithful butler, James.

Dinner for One is based upon a twelve-minute-long comedy sketch written in the 1920s by English actor-writer Lauri Wylie and first performed in 1934 as part of a revue compiled by Wylie. It popped up on Broadway in 1953 as part of John Murray Anderson's Almanac but faded into obscurity in both England and the United States. However, in 1962 it resurfaced in Germany in an eighteen-minute-long version broadcast on German television. That broadcast became an annual New Year's Eve tradition, spreading to Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxemburg, South Africa, and Australia.

The piece has been broadcast specifically on New Year's Eve because it is set on a New Year's Eve, which also happens to be the occasion of Miss Sophie's birthday–in some productions her 80th, in others her 90th. In the expanded play at the Jungle, we begin twenty some years earlier, with a series of brief scenes that set the stage for the core of show.

The first brief scene reveals Eli Sherlock's atmospheric set. It is a gracious but defeated-looking dining room, with the dining table covered by a large cloth as if to deter any thought of indulgence. An old-fashioned gramophone with a large amplifying horn plays music recorded on wax cylinders, the antecedent of records. At the rear of the room, an abundance of frames hang salon style, with the pictures within them removed, as if this room is bereft of the life it once held. One of the frames is far larger than the others, with drapes covering whatever image it contains.

James prepares a pair of glasses for a celebratory toast. Miss Sophie descends haltingly down an elegant staircase, covered in black mourning garb. She eyes the glass James extends to her, waves it away, and returns upstairs. After a brief blackout, it is the next year. This is repeated over the course of several years, as James tries to dispel Miss Sophie's melancholy with a new gambit each year, and Miss Sophie's staunch resistance cracks just a little more each time.

After several such episodes, we leap ahead twenty years. The covering is off the dining table, which is set for a formal dinner. Miss Sophie descends down the stairs rid of her black mourning clothes, now dressed in a golden gown and coat fit for a queen, with matching gold shoes, gloves, headpiece, and a lengthy train that requires James' assistance to negotiate the space (Ora Jewell-Busche designed the splendid costumes). James claps his hands toward the large, draped frame, and it reveals a pianist and violinist who provide music–mostly in a classical vein–to accompany the evening.

The table is set for Miss Sophie and four gentlemen guests. These are the great admirers and lovers of Miss Sophie's past: Sir Toby, a renowned actor and a sot; Admiral Von Schneider, whose adventures were on the high seas; Mr. Pomeroy, who mumbles indecipherably but makes his deep affection for Sophie known; and Mr. Winterbottom, a poet dripping with flowery verse and a hint of lechery. However, none of these four are actually present, as Sophie has outlived them all. James dutifully impersonates each one in turn, as they express their regard for their hostess, present her with gifts, and make romantic toasts in her honor. Sophie adores them all. She also imagines the presence of her cat, Whiskers, admonishing him from time to time, which prompts James to earnestly meow.

In the course of the dinner, each guest has an opportunity to retrieve a treasured memory and reenact it with their beloved Sophie, with the obliging James taking each part. Every course of the dinner calls for a toast, with each gentleman chiming in. James, ever-obliging, consumes four glasses of liquor in every round and becomes increasingly soused. Miss Sophie pays no heed to this, but his slapstick movements and sloppy speech gets a great rise from the audience. The play takes a serious when Sophie opens the gift James has left, drawing them both to the here and now in a perfectly bittersweet and lovely ending.

James is the showier role, given that the actor is called on not only to play the loyal butler, whose feelings toward his employee are open to speculation, but also create vivid sketches of the four imaginary dinner guests–and a cat to boot! Tyson Forbes is up to the demands of the role, which calls for superb physical comedy as well as distinctive characterizations. As a man becoming increasingly drunk, his speech and behavior increasingly sloppy, he draws hearty laughs and manages to avoid making this depiction offensive. Similarly, a running gag about tripping on a bump in the rug is the kind of bit that can easily become wearisome, but not here: Tyson make each incident a fresh occurrence of that familiar stumble and it only becomes funnier.

As Miss Sophie, Joy Dolo must convey an initial melancholy, followed by gaiety and coquettishness dependent on being committed to the fantasy she has created, and, finally, as she is brought back to reality, glide into a state of contentment, if not elation, before the night is through. There must be the emergence of an unexpected depth to her nature. Dolo scores in meeting all of these demands, especially moving in the final scene. She delivers physical comedy with aplomb, such as wrestling with her gown's unwieldy train or trying to scooch in her chair. Dolo and Forbes together are delightful playacting as former lovers reliving a dance or recreating a musical hall routine sung at a ship's wheel.

I did find, though, less magnetism between James and Miss Sophie as played by these actors. Sun Mee Chomet portrayed Miss Sophie as a more fragile woman, simperingly girlish and rather lost in her fantasy and dependent on James to get her through the night. Dolo's portrayal is of a stronger Miss Sophie–deluded in fantasy, yes, but in charge of her house and her evening. She seems capable of making it on her own. Jim Lichtscheidl's James was present to serve and to take care of Miss Sophie; Forbes' James is there to do his job, with James being less of a caretaker and more of a co-conspirator. Though bittersweet in either case, this casting ends Dinner for One feeling less of heartbreak and more of hope.

Music is an essential component of the production. Music director Emilia Mettenbrink provides beautiful arrangements drawn from the classical repertoire (that giddy music hall number excepted), shifting tones to reflect the play's moods. The musicians, supposedly there to entertain Miss Sophie and her dinner guests, actually provide the soundtrack for Miss Sophie's memories. The musicians are double cast; at the performance I attended, Mettenbrink was on violin and Lara Bolton was on piano, both playing beautifully throughout the show.

While Dinner for One does not have a note of Christmas music, it ends with the song most strongly associated with New Year's Eve, performed not by the pianist and violinist, but by Miss Sophie and James themselves, summoning more heart to the story than you might realize it had. It is a tender moment in a show that uses comedy to address a yearning for beauty, romance, and joy in our lives. No matter who is on stage, I recommend that you make yourself a guest in Miss Sophie's dining room.

Dinner for One runs through January 4, 2026, at at Jungle Theater, 2951 Lyndale Avenue S., Minneapolis MN. For tickets and information, please visit www.jungletheater.com.

Co-Creators: Christina Baldwin, Sun Mee Chomet, Jim Lichtscheidl; Director: Christina Baldwin; Music Director and Arrangements: Emilia Mettenbrink; Set Design: Eli Sherlock; Costume Design: Ora Jewell-Busche; Lighting Design: Marcus Dilliard; Sound Designer: Jaime Lupercio; Properties Designer/Stage Manager: John Novak; Technical Director: John Lutz; Assistant Director: Alison Ruth; Production Manager: Kathy Maxwell.

Cast: Christina Baldwin* (Miss Sophie), Joy Dolo * (Miss Sophie), Tyson Forbes * (James), Jim Lichtscheidl * (James). Musicians: Lara Bolton* (piano), Alexandra Early* (violin), Angela Hanson *(violin), Celeste Marie Johnson * (piano), Emilia Mettenbrink* (violin).

*alternating performances