In the following review, Simon calls Margulies a leading playwright and says Dinner with Friends "is entertainment as succulent as it is sobering. "

Slowly but surely, Donald Margulies is establishing himself as one of our leading playwrights Four of his plays are of prime importance: The Loman Family Picnic, Sight Unseen, Collected Stories, and now the wonderful Dinner With Friends.

Two married couples have been best friends for years. In their Connecticut home, Karen and Gabe, international food writers, are giving a dinner for Beth and Tom, which he doesn't attend. It emerges from the heartbroken Beth that he has left her for another woman, Nancy. Gabe and Karen are almost as crushed, having expected "to grow old and fat together, the four of us." When Tom shows up at his home in the next scene, late at night, he is enraged that Beth broke the news...