How does Donald Margulies use imagery in Dinner with Friends?

Margulies begins his play in what he terms the present. Time progresses throughout the first act. In order to fill in background information, showing the play's characters in the light of first love, he then changes the time, moving backwards to twelve and one half years prior to the opening scene. The flashback scene also shows both couples together and gives more emotional weight to the consequences of Tom and Beth's divorce.

The flashback allows characters to act out their history rather than have the playwright squeeze details from the past into their current dialogues. A sense of depth is added to the characters as the audience witnesses the changes in the characters' lives rather than just hearing about them. This also brings the audience into the play as active, rather than passive, members. The playwright has the option of leaving spaces, unanswered questions, and silences in the dialogues and in the actions, which then require the audience to fill them in, coming up with answers of their own.