REVIEW: Family tensions run high in TIFT’s intimate Twelve Dinners
iPhoto caption: Jane Spidell in 'Twelve Dinners.' Photo by Dahlia Katz.
Over more than 20 years in the Stratford Festival ensemble, Steve Ross has played several dozen roles. From Nicely-Nicely Johnson in Guys and Dolls to Bagot in Richard II to Avram in Fiddler On The Roof, Ross has showcased his ability to deliver a wide range of accents and affects. In the now-closed Twelve Dinners, an autobiographical play written and directed by Ross, audiences received intimate access to an unvarnished version of a younger Ross through 12 evening meals with his parents.
Set in Beamsville, Ontario in 1995 and 1996, the play follows a 30-something Steve (Noah Beemer) as he visits his elderly parents for a monthly dinner. During the early encounters, everything — from the food to the place settings to the conversation — is unremarkable: Steve fields predictable questions about his job, romantic life, and finances, over (invisible) roast beef and mashed potatoes from a box.
Yet, for all the mundane banter and pleasantries, the dinner table bristles with tension. Ross’ mother Bettye (Jane Spidell) is a mercurial woman, oscillating between criticism of Steve, long bouts of silence, and serving sherbet. In between this tension sits Ross’ father, Jim (Kevin Bundy), a perennial fixer eager to preserve peace at all costs.
As the dinners progress, the true source of the animosity between mother and son surfaces. Bettye’s biting critiques are not the trespasses of an overbearing mother but rather the guilt-ridden actions of a woman battling chronic depression and a debilitating sense of personal responsibility for her son’s recent bipolar diagnosis. “Do you have any idea the guilt I feel passing something like this on to you? Do you have any idea the nights I lie awake worrying what I’ve done to you?” Bettye asks Steve during a particularly tense interaction.
The production takes place in the dining room and kitchen of an actual house on a quiet residential street in Barrie. Upon arrival, guests trade outdoor shoes for slippers before making their way to the living room to form an intimate seated audience. Jim and Bettye are seemingly unaware that they are in a fishbowl, but Steve toggles his attention between the audience and the dinner table, essentially translating the subtext that fills each scene. These moments of direct address chart Steve’s shifting perception of his mother. What begins as a child-parent relationship charged with antagonism evolves into a complex and moving reckoning between two adults grappling with mental illness, loneliness, and uncertainty.
Costuming by Sequoia Erickson and a handful of props coordinated by Lauren Cully — a cordless phone; a framed, sun-kissed 4×6 family photo; Steve’s Guns N’ Roses T-shirt — firmly establish the mid-1990s, upper-middle class, suburban moment of this play among an otherwise minimal set. Here, we find the beautiful tension within Twelve Dinners: the minimalism of the dinner table contrasts with the maximalism of the concerns just beyond it — generational trauma, family secrets, anguish, and stigma. Bettye says she’s fine but her actions, such as serving her son’s least favourite meal, chicken cacciatore, tell the audience otherwise. Bettye, Jim, and Steve are the quintessential family that talks around but rarely about difficult subjects.
For much of the play, immersion in the family’s world is full and profound. At the performance I attended, the audience, often only a few metres away from the actors, was perfectly quiet as they watched Steve’s family interact. But I did find that the addition of music to more sombre moments pulled me out of the experience.
Spidell’s depiction of Bettye is assured and vulnerable. She is relentlessly critical of Steve, yet the source of her criticism — her deep insecurity and self-loathing — is never far from reach. She is tragic, painfully infuriating, sharp, and occasionally hopeful. Bundy’s Jim is equally rich. The sparseness of his interventions pair with his endless supply of random facts to underscore his own helplessness in the face of his wife’s and son’s depression.
As interlocutor, Beemer handles the audience with great care, offering levity during some of the heavier scenes as well as tremendous kindness and insight. Given the range of dynamics Steve must navigate — with his mother, his father, and even with himself — Beemer’s performance is impressively courageous and self-reflexive.
With Twelve Dinners, Talk Is Free Theatre offers an immersive experience that delves into the ugliness of family dynamics while preserving the humanity and dignity of each character. There are no villains, just people across generations and experiences trying to do the best they can with the tools they’ve got.
Twelve Dinners ran at 59 Shanty Bay Road in Barrie from November 20 to 29. More information is available here.
Phillip Dwight Morgan wrote this review as part of ON Criticism: The 2025/26 Theatre Critics Lab, a collaboration between the Grand Theatre, Talk is Free Theatre, Tarragon Theatre, Theatre Aquarius, and Intermission.
Phillip Dwight Morgan
Phillip Dwight Morgan is a Toronto-based writer, playwright, and editor with bylines in the Walrus, Maclean's, Brick Literary Journal, and the Toronto Star, among others. He is the 2025 winner of the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers (nonfiction) and was a participant in the 24/25 Obsidian Playwrights Unit and 2025 Banff Playwrights Lab.
LEARN MORE
iPhoto caption: Members of the 'Ophis' company. Photo courtesy of Transcen|Dance Project.
REVIEW: Ophis dunks viewers into a gothic experience of Medusa’s psychic landscape
Transcen|Dance Project’s Ophis is a woozy tragedy that courts both playfulness and eroticism, deliberately dissolving the boundaries of stage and audience with an immersive format that’s sometimes thrilling, sometimes terrifying, and sometimes — if you’re a people-pleaser like me — both simultaneously.
iPhoto caption: L to R, top to bottom: 'The 39 Steps' (photo by Raph Nogal), 'Benevolence' (photo by Jae Yang), 'The Born-Again Crow' (photo by Jeremy Mimnagh), 'Dimanche' (photo by Thomas Müller), 'Last Landscape' (photo by Fran Chudnoff), 'The Merchant of Venice' (photo by Kyle Purcell), 'Slave Play' (photo by Dahlia Katz), 'Waiting for Godot' (photo by Elana Emer), 'The Welkin' (photo by Dahlia Katz).
Twelve indelible moments of performance from 2025
With the lights fading on another year of fleeting thrills in dark rooms, we asked 12 Ontario performing arts writers to reflect on a moment that stayed with them. The results mainly stem from Toronto theatre productions, but there are a few surprises weaved in.
iPhoto caption: Connor Mitton and members of the company of 'Sex Dalmatian’s Hot Holiday Spectacular.' Photo by Jeremy Mimnagh.
REVIEW: Sex Dalmatian’s Hot Holiday Spectacular is a peppermint-coated acid trip
Rock Bottom Movement’s surrealist mandate is on full display in this 15-dancer fantasia, which begins with an invitation to let go: “The only thing you need to know is not to know anything at all,” pronounces the Mayor of Sex Dalmatian, the evening’s narrator and the mayor of the titular canine’s mind.
iPhoto caption: Vanessa Sears as Juliet, Julia McLellan as Anne, Matt Raffy as May, and Sarah Nairne as Angelique in '& Juliet.' Photo by Dahlia Katz.
REVIEW: Mirvish’s & Juliet sparkles on the surface despite narrative stumbles
The technical elements of & Juliet are rightfully excessive, fabulous, and gauche, solidifying the camp grounding upon which I came to appreciate the show as a whole.
iPhoto caption: Members of the company of 'Ruby and the Reindeer.' Photo by Ann Baggley.
REVIEW: Ruby and the Reindeer conjures a very Ontario Christmas at Stratford’s Here For Now Theatre
A festive addition to Mark Crawford’s catalogue of Canadian comedies, Ruby and the Reindeer isn’t shy about its local roots.
iPhoto caption: Ben Porter in 'The Woman in Black.' Photo courtesy of Mirvish.
REVIEW: Mirvish’s The Woman in Black conjures chills in the shadows
If you’re willing to suspend your disbelief and let your imagination run loose, The Woman in Black will reward you with a genuine jolt or two.
Comments