When dining at a restaurant, do you find yourself overhearing snippets of conversation and wondering what’s going on in someone’s life? At Dinner, a new production coming to ACT Hub next week, gives you permission to eavesdrop on personal conversations without breaking any social rules.

The play follows young, long-distance couple, Anna and Eden, who go to dinner after reuniting. Now in their early 20s, the high school sweethearts are struggling to navigate their relationship as they grow.

“It’s a really interesting look at modern-day relationships and this idea of how we are perceived and how we perceive others, especially in a public setting,” says actress Thea Jade.

Jade plays the role of Anna, explaining that the character is at an interesting time in her life with a lot of questions about her identity and where she is going.

“She’s got a relationship that’s at home, but she is building a life for herself somewhere else.”

Playwright Rebecca Duke was inspired by that transitional time in your early 20s when you haven’t quite figured out your life is your own; before you learn if you want things to happen, you have to put in the work. She says it seems to be something that people around her are experiencing.

“They’re both sitting there, neither of them realises that they can either make the relationship better or decide that they don’t want to be there anymore,” Duke says.

Food is ordered, with some hiccups as the relationship between the couple and those around them continues to deteriorate. Insults are brushed off while nonchalant remarks are taken as offence, and the audience witnesses the dysfunction between them.

“You can tell he’s rehearsed the script in his head. He’s like, we’re going to finally get to the bottom of why this is bad and we’re going to either fix it or end it, and then Anna comes into it, and she doesn’t quite have those intentions,” Duke says.

Cabaret-style seating evokes a sense of the audience being patrons in the same restaurant, witnessing an evening of misinterpreted moments and slight cruelties. They question whether either person knows why they are in the relationship, while Anna is also busy making judgments about them.

Though the play is scripted, Jade is excited to see how the experience with the crowd changes each night. The waitress for the evening also takes the time to check in on her other customers. Duke is excited to see this unfold and hopes the play will draw in both seasoned theatre-goers and those who may be seeing a show for the first time.

“I think those are the people who have the most exciting reactions to immersive theatre because they don’t necessarily know the rules yet.”

Inspired by the greats, Duke says nearly every established playwright has written a dinner play, which is a great way to test yourself as a writer. Without having things constantly changing and happening around characters, stripping the script to just dialogue means you can expose your writing.

“You can see your weaknesses and kind of pick them apart and fix them,” Duke says.

At Dinner offers an insight into modern love, which is typically portrayed as developed and built up through an online connection. We soon get the feeling that our couple don’t have much of a relationship online; is there even much of one at all?

“Anna is definitely the kind of person that if you’re not right there, then you’re not really there at all, but then when she’s with you, she’ll be with you,” Duke says.

She hopes the audience will be able to see parts of themselves in the characters, although it would be easy not to, as they both act in ways you would want to separate yourself from. 

“I feel bad about how much I relate to Anna,” smiles Jade.

“I know Annas, at least in a sense, and I know Edens in a sense, and neither of them are good people but I wouldn’t say that they’re bad people either,” adds Duke.

Feast on the nuances of modern relationships in At Dinner, at ACT HUB, 9-11 February; acthub.com.au

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