‘Dindin’ Brings Harbor Stage Talents To The Screen

          Table manners. They are what separate us from the animals. After all, without them, who knows what might happen around a dinner table? 
           On Oct. 8, “Dindin,” a film adapted from a play written by Wellfleet’s Harbor Stage co-founder Brenda Withers and featuring all four of the theater’s founders, will be digitally released by Good Deed Entertainment. Directed by Brendan Patrick Hughes, with cinematography by his wife, Emily Topper, and executive produced by longtime Orleans resident and former Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater (WHAT) artistic director Jeff Zinn, “Dindin” is a remarkable film for a number of reasons, not the least of which are the long working relationships among the cast members, as well as those on the other side of the camera. 
           Described as a black comedy of manners and a post-genre meditation on predators and prey, “Dindin” is also a fascinating exploration of human beings, specifically four white American human beings of differing socioeconomic bearing in a universal setting, gathered around a table to share a meal. A visually stunning film, “Dindin” begins with the disconcerting sounds of the thunder and rain we soon learn is raging outside as the dinner takes place. The dialog drops in mid-sentence, with the four diners — Emily (Stacy Fischer), her husband Pierre (Robert Kropf), and single guests Darlene (Brenda Withers) and Ricky (Jonathan Fielding) — in semi-polite mid-clash on the topic of the meal itself. Our first visual is the incredibly expressive face of the host and creator of the meal, Emily, attempting to steer (no pun intended) the conversation away from conflict for the sake of a pleasant meal. However, the rise and fall of discord and harmony between and among the four characters seated as if in a spotlight around the table will not be calmed and is the engine that drives this compelling rumination (pun intended) on humanity, appetites, life, and death.
           Written by Brenda Withers, “Dindin” was first performed via Zoom during the COVID pandemic. In fact, the film’s budget came in part from a federal COVID relief grant, which Harbor Stage couldn’t use to open the theater due to social distancing guidelines at the time. “Dindin” was finally performed for audiences at the Harbor Stage Company in Wellfleet in the summer of 2021. The film premiered in August 2023 at the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival. It has the unusual distinction of having opened as a play with the same cast less than one month after principal photography wrapped on the feature film. 
           “This experiment has taken a long and winding road — from shooting on a microbudget during the pandemic to navigating a tiny theater company's relationship to the film industry — and we're excited to finally offer the movie to audiences on Cape and beyond,” Withers said. 
           The history and interrelationships of the four cast members, director, cinematographer and executive producer undoubtedly make possible the uncanny unified feeling of the film, which feels as if it sprang fully-formed from the world in which it takes place rather than coming into existence through the work of multiple separate individuals.
          This sense of a unified vision makes sense, as the four cast members, all the founding members of Wellfleet’s Harbor Stage Company, have been creating together since long before they joined forces to make sure the iconic seaside theater — formerly the location of WHAT prior to the construction of the Julie Harris Stage location in 2007 — would remain an artist-run operation. In addition, Harbor Stage artistic director Robert Kropf and Stacy Fischer are a real-life couple, as are the two other cast members, “Dindin” writer Brenda Withers and Jonathan Fielding. Director Brendan Patrick Hughes and cinematographer Emily Topper are also a married couple, rounding out this very tight-knit creative team. 
           “Years ago, when the Harbor Stage was WHAT, I directed for Jeff Zinn and Gip Hoppe, in the way old days, when I was in grad school, before the Julie Harris Stage was built,” director Hughes said. “I’d been vacationing every summer with my family in Wellfleet since about 1985.”
           Hughes said working with the cast was an amazing experience. 
           “They are so, so good,” Hughes said. “There wasn’t the need to create scaffolding, the way you have to do as a director. No rudimentary questions to help learn each other's style. It was more like adding grace notes. They were interpreting moments on such a deep level, deep questions about the terror of living. The deepest questions, which Brenda’s brilliance as the writer yielded up. I knew whatever came out would be brilliant. And mostly it was time spent hanging out with my favorite people.” 
           Zinn said “Dindin” is just a really good movie. He pointed out that although some work doesn’t successfully make the leap from stage to screen, “Dindin” does so beautifully. 
 “The fact that these are actors who have been working together for over a decade, that’s what makes it so good. And the writing is insanely good. Brenda is so good. The elements that make the movie as good as it is have to do with the talent of Brendan as director, Emily as cinematographer and lighting director, the quality of the acting and the nature of the ensemble. ‘Dindin’ is very engaging, fun at times, dark and suspenseful and dangerous at other times. It works. That’s the bottom line.”
           “Dindin,” written by Brenda Withers, directed by Brendan Patrick Hughes, with cinematography by Emily Topper and executive produced by Jeff Zinn, featuring Stacy Fischer, Robert Kropf, Brenda Withers and Jonathan Fielding will be digitally released on Oct. 8, and will be available on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Google Play and Spectrum. For more information about the film, visit https://www.brendanhughes.com/dindin/ and https://www.harborstage.org/dindin-the-movie.html.