House
The Artists Repertory Theatre opened their 2007-2008 season with a
real crowd-pleaser, sure to leave season ticket holders resting easy
about their financial commitment to the arts. It’s fluffy stuff,
engaging and fast-paced, with a hook that can’t help but impress: Alan
Ayckbourn’s House/Garden consists of two interlocking plays,
performed simultaneously by one cast on two different stages. The works
can stand on their own, but seeing both of them reveals a deeper and
more complicated portrait of the events of one hectic August
afternoon.
Teddy (Tim True) and Trish Platt (Maureen Porter) are landed-gentry
types responsible for their town’s annual summer fete. On one stage,
the demands of preparing for an important event are superimposed over
the dynamics of a troubled household (House), while on the other
stage, the fete itself provides a backdrop for a fast-paced series of
affairs (Garden).
House‘s main plot points revolve around the relationship
between Trish and Teddy. Teddy hopes to use the pre-fete luncheon as a
chance to advance his political career, but it’s on this eventful
afternoon that Trish’s unhappiness with her insensitive, blustery
husband finally comes to a head. On a stage jam-packed with Portland’s
finest actors (Tim True, Todd Van Voris, Michael O’Connell),
House absolutely belongs to Maureen Porter. Her grounded
performance combines warmth and pragmatism in a refreshingly complex
take on the ol’ “unhappy wife” chestnut. Meanwhile, in her Artists Rep
debut, Brittany Burch impressively holds her own among the seasoned
cast in her role as Sally, Trish and Teddy’s bright, self-obsessed
teenage daughter.
In some ways, House would be a stronger production without
the appended Garden. Some of the scenes in House feel
padded—one suspects at points that had the rest of the cast not
been required elsewhere, some of the lengthier monologues might’ve been
trimmed. When plot points from Garden do intrude on
House, it can be a bit overwhelming—the action in
Garden seems significantly more manic than that of House. In general, though, the simultaneous presence of Garden brings
an interesting depth to the production—the knowledge that when
these characters are offstage, they’re somewhere else, doing something
else, adds a tantalizing level of complexity to an already engaging
show.ALISON HALLETT
Garden
If you’ve ever wondered what a “romp” would look like, Garden is a British romp indeed. As much as House is a drawing-room
comedy in which the characters’ eccentricities strain against the
confines of the room, Garden shows the characters affected by
their natural, wilder surroundings.
In the world of House and Garden, everything boils
down to sex, love, and the pursuit or absence of both. In
Garden, the action is a series of vignettes—as one group
of characters finishes a scene and leaves, another bursts onto the
stage. Since the actors playing these characters are also a part of the
simultaneous production of House, they spend the lion’s share of
the production onstage or racing from one stage to another.
The manic pace the actors have to keep brings an excited, high
energy to their performances. Love affairs ignited and broken, furtive
and bawdy, have a heightened sense of urgency that makes the play
consistently engaging.
The extramarital affair in House that has Trish Platt
ignoring her husband, Teddy, ignites and propels the action in
Garden. When Teddy breaks it off with neighbor Joanna Mace
(Marilyn Stacey), she slides off the deep end and spends most of the
rest of the play hiding in the bushes. Barry (Michael Mendelson) and
Lindy Love (Marjorie Tatum), also neighbors, spend most of the first
act setting up the backyard carnival and providing short, sharp bursts
of comic energy as Barry orders Lindy around and she grows increasingly
disenchanted. Joanna Mace’s son, Jake (Tyler Caffall), is in love with
Teddy Platt’s daughter, Sally, and struggles to get her to notice him.
The gardener, Warn (Eric Hull), is carrying on a relationship with
Izzie (Vana O’Brien), the Platts’ housekeeper, as well as her daughter,
Pearl (Eleanor O’Brien)—who is also making eyes at the rest of
the older men on the scene. A French film star attends the party and
proves the full extent of Teddy’s infidelity by ending up with him in
the fortune-telling tent.
The action is over the top, well paced, and well maintained by this
talented and hard-working cast. Ayckbourn’s play has had a solid stream
of success since it premiered in London in 2000, largely because the
play’s quality extends far beyond its gimmickry. House and
Garden feature incredibly well-crafted characters that provide
excellent handles for actors to grasp onto and shine. It’s a pleasure
to see such a well-rehearsed, dedicated performance from Artists Rep.TEMPLE LENTZ