Rules for Living puts the fun in dysfunctional family. The dark, hilarious Christmas comedy by Sam Holcroft, currently playing at Round House Theatre, premiered at London’s National Theatre in 2015. This U.S. premiere, deftly directed by Ryan Rillette, has been slightly Americanized, tightened up, clarified, and made even funnier if the original script is anything to go by. The show portrays a family gathering for Christmas lunch in an unidentified American locale. There are obviously deep tensions and rifts in the family that everyone is trying to gloss over in their own way. The tension is so thick that, as with Chekhov’s gun, the audience knows from the outset that there will be an explosion before the play is done. The burning question for us is, will we find out how all these dysfunctional relationships arose before the bomb goes off?  Dina Thomas (Nicole), Naomi Jacobson (Deborah), Will Conard (Matthew), Dani Stoller (Carrie), John Lescault (Francis), and Jonathan Feuer (Adam) in ‘Rules for Living’ at Round House Theatre. Photo by Margot Schulman. The characters are the somewhat spineless younger son, Matthew (Will Conard), and his girlfriend Carrie (Dani Stoller), a flamboyant actress who desperately wants to be liked, and the bitter older son, Adam (Jonathan Feuer), his know-it-all wife, Nicole, and their teenage daughter, Emma. Deborah (Naomi Jacobson) is the high-strung, repressed matriarch of the family, and her husband, Francis (John Lescault), appears only halfway through the play, but seems to rule over the family with an iron fist even when he is not present. Matthew brought Carrie only because she asked, but he secretly has a crush on Nicole. Nicole and Adam’s marriage is on the rocks because they can’t agree on how to raise their daughter, and because Adam is a feckless failure who can’t follow through with anything. Matthew and Adam, both unhappy lawyers, secretly hate each other because their lawyer father has been pitting them against each other all their lives, and their mother clearly favors Matthew, the successful son. Deborah is of that certain old-school WASP generation for whom everything must be perfect, especially on Christmas, and no one ever admits that anything is wrong. And Francis is clearly a tyrant who has always ordered everyone around while doing whatever he wants for himself. The title Rules for Living refers to a principle from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, whereby everyone unconsciously creates rules of behavior for themselves to keep uncomfortable emotions at bay, but the rules often solidify into habits that do more harm than good. And here lies the play’s true stroke of comic genius: the particular “rules” the characters employ appear one by one above the proscenium, clueing the audience in to what is actually going on under what the characters say. They include: • Matthew must sit to tell a lie|• Adam must put on an accent to tell the truth• Carrie must stand to tell a joke• Nicole must drink to contradict• Deborah must clean to hold her tongue Dani Stoller (Carrie) and Will Conard (Matthew) in ‘Rules for Living’ at Round House Theatre. Photo by Margot Schulman. While these feel like they might have begun as prompts in an improv game like “Party Quirks,” here they have been honed into fine-edged tools to reveal the characters’ real feelings and spark friction between them. And the friction must soon ignite into a conflagration. It takes meticulous effort to work up to this much chaos. Every movement, even every bite of food, must have been carefully choreographed in collaboration between the director and the actors. The set (Jimmy Stubbs was scenic designer) presents a realistic upper-middle-class home with a working kitchen, Christmas tree, and open-plan dining and living room. Props Supervisor Annamae Durham has her work cut out for her, providing breakable antiques and edible food from wine to cookies to mashed potatoes to a carvable turkey, and a crew to clean it all up after the climax, when all the rules morph into anarchy. The actors take all this and run with it, from precise comedy to utter mayhem. Connard’s Matthew makes his constant standing up, sitting down, and eating seem natural, but also perfectly punctuate his lies. Feuer’s Adam aces the vocal challenge of both deadpan lying and coming up with multiple funny voices to express his frustrated truths. Stoller’s Carrie surmounts great physical challenges, constantly jumping up and dancing around to make her awkward jokes. Thomas’s Nicole gets progressively more drunk, while contradicting and interrupting others at precise moments. Jacobson’s Deborah portrays both the steel and the suffering underneath her pseudo-placid façade. And Lescaut’s Francis shows his iron will and his serious flaws while being almost mute in a wheelchair. Many of these actors are DC theater veterans, some with multiple Helen Hayes Awards and nominations, and it shows.  Rules for Living is both a riotous comedy and a gripping mystery, as the evening gradually reveals how this family got so wretchedly, hysterically dysfunctional, and how — or whether — they are going to resolve their problems. For anyone who has ever attended a disastrous holiday dinner, see this show. Its laughs and truths will make your family seem not quite so bad.Running Time: Two hours and 30 minutes, including one intermission.  Rules for Living plays through January 4, 2026, at Round House Theatre, 4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda, MD. Performances are Tuesday through Friday at 7:30 PM, Saturday at 8:00 PM, and Saturday and Sunday at 2:00 PM. Tickets start at $50 with ticket discounts available. Purchase tickets by calling 240.644.1100, ordering online, visiting the box office, or through TodayTix.The program is online here. Running Time: Two hours and 30 minutes, including one intermission.  Rules for Living plays through January 4, 2026, at Round House Theatre, 4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda, MD. Performances are Tuesday through Friday at 7:30 PM, Saturday at 8:00 PM, and Saturday and Sunday at 2:00 PM. Tickets start at $50 with ticket discounts available. Purchase tickets by calling 240.644.1100, ordering online, visiting the box office, or through TodayTix. The program is online here. Buy Tickets Discount Tickets SEE ALSO: Ryan Rilette on why Round House picked the holiday farce ‘Rules for Living’(interview by Ravelle Brickman, December 6, 2025)Round House Theatre announces cast for U.S. premiere of ‘Rules for Living’ (news story, October 29, 2025) The post Laughs and truths rule in ‘Rules for Living’ at Round House Theatre appeared first on DC Theater Arts. ...read more read less