By Shawn Maus
Aaron Epstein’s My Dinner with Carly, presented as part of Cincinnati LAB Theatre’s New Works Festival, is a talk-heavy play about dating, honesty and the baggage people bring to the table before they have even ordered dinner.
Directed by Robert Allen, the staged reading featured Jake Schaub as Charlie, Emily Bruns as Carly, Kirsten Symone as the bartender and Elaine Eckstein reading the stage directions. Allen and the cast gave the play its best chance. Schaub and Bruns found a quick, natural rhythm that made us feel as though we were listening in on a real date.
That is one of the play’s strengths. The trouble is that the conversation never builds enough pressure. Carly and Charlie share plenty, but I rarely understood what either person wanted from the evening or what might be lost if it went badly.
Two People, One Table, No Real Collision
Epstein said during the talkback that the play was written for his generation and conceived as an homage to My Dinner with Andre. That film is often remembered as two men talking over dinner, but the talk has friction. André believes ordinary life has put people to sleep. Wally pushes back with work, money, comfort and the daily business of surviving. They keep testing each other’s beliefs, and that gives the dinner a reason to happen.
My Dinner with Carly borrows the table and the long conversation, but not yet the tension underneath it. When Charlie says, “Maybe I’ll try being honest,” the play seems to promise that something difficult is about to come out. But he and Carly spend the evening talking about modern dating, loneliness and emotional damage without pushing each other far enough to make honesty dangerous.
Epstein also imagined the audience seated at tables around the actors, almost cabaret-style. That could be fun. But eavesdropping only works when you hear something you were not supposed to hear—or when the people at the next table appear headed for a collision.
For much of the play, I felt less like I was overhearing a date and more like I had accidentally sat beside a therapy session at Applebee’s. One of the characters eventually asks whether this is a date or a therapy session. I had been wondering the same thing.
The Truth Never Quite Comes Out
Allen made a smart choice by moving Charlie’s monologue from the end to the beginning. In it, Charlie wonders whether he might try being honest. That gives the evening a promise: What is he hiding, and what will honesty cost him?
The answer never fully arrives.
Carly becomes Charlie’s unpaid therapist, and the play keeps disclosing information without turning those disclosures into conflict. Even when former partners appear—a moment that should crack the evening open—the emotional temperature barely changes.
I wanted somebody to say the wrong thing and be unable to take it back. I wanted Carly and Charlie to challenge each other, embarrass each other or force each other to make a choice. The dialogue is quick, but the play still needs the fight underneath the talk.
The setting may be part of the problem. Halfway through, I started imagining these two meeting somewhere less expected: at a conference, a recovery meeting or in a hotel room like one of the encounters in Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite. A different place might add rules, danger or pressure. A restaurant is natural. It may also be the least surprising choice.
The Cast Makes It Feel Real
Whatever remains to be fixed on the page, the performances were honest. Bruns gave Carly confidence without making her bulletproof. Schaub found Charlie’s uncertainty without asking us to excuse him. Together they made the dialogue sound natural.
Symone’s bartender deserves sympathy, hazard pay and at least a 50 percent tip.
Why a New Play Festival Matters
Epstein wrote in his own voice for the audience he wanted to reach. He did not try to please everyone, and he should not. Cincinnati LAB Theatre gave him actors, a director and a room full of people willing to tell him where the play held their attention and where it lost them.
This is what a workshop should do.
The next draft needs clearer wants, stronger conflict and a reason this particular dinner changes both people—or at least leaves a bruise.
At one point, Carly says she has been ghosted nine times. At the end, Charlie wonders whether he will become number 10. That is the question the play should make us care about much sooner.
Shawn Says:
The ingredients are there for Epstein to return to the table and make the next course stronger.
Show Information
My Dinner with Carly by Aaron Epstein was presented on Sunday, July 19 as part of Cincinnati LAB Theatre’s 2026 New Works Festival at the Bell Tower Arts Pavilion in Evendale.
The New Works Festival continues through July 25. Festival schedule and tickets: cincylabtheatre.com
