By A.R. Gurney. Directed by Chelsea Haberlin. A Western Gold Theatre production. At the PAL Studio Theatre on Friday, October 23. Continues until November 8

The Dining Room is a well-crafted toast to people I don’t like.

In A.R. Gurney’s play, over 50 characters rotate through a single dining room in an expensive home. As scenes from the lives of various families—from the Depression up to the early ’80s—overlap, it becomes clear that the script is a tribute to a supposedly vanishing socioeconomic group: upper-middle-class New England WASPs.

Gurney sometimes takes digs at this group’s foibles, including its obsession with social standing—a patriarch is outraged when Binky, from the club, calls his brother a fruit—but, mostly, Gurney waxes nostalgic about the good old days. Sure, these people are uptight, Gurney seems to be saying, but I love ’em.

But what if you’re not in that group? There are several maids in the play, but only one comes close to being a full character. Family members treat Agnes with the same combination of affection and obliviousness that’s the fate of many a family dog. I have no doubt that Gurney intends the melancholy in this footnote, but it’s still a footnote. Overall, The Dining Room is a myopic celebration of privilege.

Still, the scenes interlock like expert joinery, and the script is often witty: one of the rich old guys tells a grandson that he went to Europe—and hated it. “I took along a trunk load of shredded wheat,” says the adventurer. “Came back when it ran out.”

The Dining Room premiered in 1982, and, for a while, every regional theatre on the continent was producing it. Why mount it now? Presumably, because six actors get to play multiple characters and that’s fun.

On the acting front, director Chelsea Haberlin’s production is a mixed success. As the shredded-wheat moneybags and, later, as a son anticipating the grief that his father’s death will bring, Keith Martin Gordey is a model of focus and restraint. On the other end of the spectrum, Kate Dion-Richard overplays almost all of her roles, including one of the maids.

Elsewhere, Haberlin swings wild with her choices and scores both hits and misses. By setting an exaggerated style, she coarsens the wit of the most clearly comic scenes. On the other hand, she has cast a couple of people of colour in this paean to white entitlement, which is satisfying. And although this play doesn’t need an extra scene, Haberlin’s decision to bookend the evening with references to a museum is justifiable.

Glenn MacDonald’s dark, woody set is handsome, and John Webber’s lighting is warm. I don’t care about selfish WASPs, but they leave a lovely afterglow.