The Chalk Garden

It seems that The Chalk Garden, currently playing at the Boston Summer Theatre, "unites the Gish sisters, Lillian and Dorothy, on a stage for the first time in half a century." As one who wasn't around 50 years ago, and who until the other night had never seen either of the Gishes perform, I can't be too impressed by this theatrical precedent. I can report, however, that the Misses Lillian and Dorothy are both fine actresses, and that they make The Chalk Garden a sparkling, engaging play.

Playwright Enid Bagnold has built her comedy on subtle dialogue and bizarre characterizations. Since she seems to believe that the soul of wit is not brevity but irrelevancy, there are some moments--especially in the first act--when the sudden monologues about plants and fertilizers make the play formless and uninteresting. But once the characterizations are well established, the playwright manages to maintain a tight, logical consistency between the fanciful lines and the equally volatile people who utter them.

Thus there is Miss Madrigal, the newly-hired "companion" in the house on a chalk cliff, who acts very mysterious and displays a frighteningly detailed knowledge of gardening. Her quirks are perfectly accounted for in the last act, when her background is exposed and the play's pseudoallegorical meaning underlined. Laurel, the 13-year-old girl in the house, is impetuous, over-self-conscious, and neurotic in just the way one would expect from her family background. As she herself says, "My case is in Freud." Dominating the household is Laurel's grandmother, Mrs. St. Maugham, who typifies a way of life that is aristocratic, self-indulgent, warped, and gone forever. Her eccentricities, together with those of the Charles Addamsish butler, are not so well justified by the playwright. But still, all the characters are tastefully and humorously drawn, without the slightest resort to the burlesque.

The play seems somewhat self-conscious about its own hidden meanings and symbols. In the last act, by having Miss Madrigal tell the grandmother: "You have not a green thumb with a plant or a child," the playwright tries rather painfully to impart some undue significance to all the gardening prattle that has gone before. I could accept the fact that raising a garden on chalk soil symbolized overcoming the obstacles of life, but any more detailed meaning seemed just too heavy for the dramatic structure to bear.

The Gishes both gave creditable performances--Lillian as Miss Madrigal and Dorothy as Mrs. St. Maugham--although they seemed somehow reluctant to lose themselves in their parts and to forget that after all, they are the Gishes. Lillian especially kept the passions within her a little too well hidden. Charron Follett, as the excitable, Gigi-like Laurel, had a part which could easily have been overplayed, but she handled it very well. O. Z. Whitehead was stiff at first but afterwards quite engaging as the butler. Only Frances Ingalls, as Laurel's young mother, was much too unsure of herself and marred an otherwise admirable production.