Alan Ayckbourn’s Garden is another teddibly British comedy about how the upper classes have hang-ups about sex (even though they carry on adulterous affairs) and how the lower classes are much freer with their sexuality (so much so that it borders on incest). All of the almost farcical action takes place over the course of nine hours on a Saturday in August in “the lower meadow area” of a garden behind a country estate about half an hour’s drive from London. It is on this date—the day of the annual village fair—that Teddy (Joel Hatch), the unfaithful master of the house, decides to end the affair he has been having with Joanna (Barbara E. Robertson), the wife of his best friend Giles (Donald Brearley). Teddy’s wife Trish (Susan Hart), as well has his precocious daughter Sally (Liesel Matthews) and Jake (Joe Sikora), the son of Joanna and Giles who is smitten with Sally, all know about the affair. So does Teddy’s gardener Warn (Ray Wild), Teddy’s housekeeper Izzie (Susan Osborne-Mott), and Izzie’s daughter (and Warn’s former lover) Pearl (Rebecca Jordan). Giles is the only one who doesn’t know about it.
In the meantime, married shopkeepers Barry (William Dick) and Lindy (Natalie West) arrive to set up the garden for the day’s festivities. Barry is condescending and cruel to Lindy, who, as it turns out, is the most real and human character in the play. In the house, malapropism-spewing Izzie is setting up for a luncheon which is to be attended by non-English speaking French film actress Lucille (Christina Carrera), and others. If all the overwrought and tepid drama in the play (which, without having seen House, stands on its own as a piece of theater) doesn’t spoil the day, the approaching thunderstorm just might.
If it sounds like there is a lot of activity, that’s only the half of it. Each time one of the actors leaves the Garden set, they race across the backstage area to make an entrance on-stage in House, playing simultaneously in the Albert Ivar Goodman Theater. A production such as Garden (and the companion House) is a great way to show off the Goodman Theater’s new state-of-the-art space. Unfortunately, the seating in the Owen Bruner Goodman Theater was incredibly uncomfortable and left some audience members with obstructed views of Linda Buchanan’s spectacular set. Now that they’ve gotten it out of their system, perhaps the people at the Goodman can get back to the business of challenging and entertaining the audience.