House & Garden

There are some geniuses who reinvent themselves with every effort and there are others who recycle their unique vision with each creative work. Alan Ayckbourn seems to fall into the latter category. House & Garden (1999) now running simultaneously - yes, that is the word - at the Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre to July 17 is Mr. Ayckbourn's ongoing investigation into the foibles of love and marriage, the peculiarities of the English class system, and the anomalies of time, all of them ripe for comic misadventure.

Fourteen actors hurtle through the confines of PICT's Stephen Foster Memorial Hall into two theatrical spaces to bring the plays to life in a little over 2 ½ hours. Never was the concept of a Green Room such a state of mind. House, the more traditional of the two dramatically - farcical, withholding key information about character and plot - is performed on a proscenium. Garden, featuring elements of slapstick and fleshed-out back story, is carried out on a thrust stage, the better to allow for the stage business at hand.

The social context of the plays: The Platts (gentry) are about to throw a fête for the village - catered by the Loves (trades) - to which they've invited their good friends the Maces (professionals) as well as others of their circle. Each has a 17 year-old who, along with a pair of domestics and a gardener (working poor), mirror the bad behavior and sometimes offer examples of improvement for their betters while two major outsiders (artists), a novelist cum dealmaker and an actress cum alcoholic (with a seeming chauffeur), stir things up.

There are some things to keep in mind. On the one hand, philandering Teddy Platt (Martin Giles) is having an affair with Joanna Mace (Beth Hylton) which everyone is aware of - most especially his wife Trish (Helena Ruoti) who has turned the silent treatment into an art form - excepting classic good guy husband Giles Mace (David Bryan Jackson). His son Jake (Sean Mellot) is smitten with the almost insufferably precocious Sally Platt (played superbly by Anwen Darcy) who keeps him at arms length. On the other, Teddy has plans for political glory about which writer/deal broker Gavin Ryng-Mayne (played with admirable calculation by Leo Marks) comes to sound him out.

Several horror stories unfold as sidelines. The working staff - Izzie (Mary Rawson), her daughter Pearl, the erstwhile town sleep-about (Sarah Manton), and woodsman Warn (Jon Farris) all seem to have lived in a ménage a trois. Further evidence of this opportunistic world is graphically shown with the treatment of Lindy Love (Tressa Glover) at the hands of her husband Barry (Michael Fuller). But if there's any doubt about the grim context, Mr. Marks' character comes with a sexual predilection straight out of Krafft-Ebing, and a film star (the sprightly Nike Doukas) whose fall into addiction, it is suggested, is brought about by two former husbands. Her driver Fran Briggs (Allison Scarlett Jaye), as a nursemaid of sorts, has a My Favorite Year project squeezed into a day with her charge.

One distinct theme of the plays, just in case you missed it: Men are such s....! Guys, there are few, if any, role models here! This is a reasonable interpretation - one the ladies might agree with (or find funny!) - Mr. Ayckbourn is regarded as a proto-feminist in some circles. Another view might be that he has merely sent-up some of the episodes and tendencies of his own amazing life, which biographer Paul Allen has described in his compact and entertaining Alan Ayckbourn: Grinning at the Edge (2002).

Simultaneity aside, House & Garden, with all the overlaps and intercalations, are essentially two different plays, with different points of view. So if characters seem changed from one play to the next, they are. House, seen from the perspective of the privileged class, is more conflict-oriented, moving to resolution with ambiguity, whereas Garden, viewed from the vantage point of the dispossessed, inclines towards fleshing things out and goes for closure. The male world tends to carry the tune through the first play while the world of women, their teenagers, the domestic staff and retainers gain ascendancy and definition in the second. Also, be forewarned: there are stretches in the plays where much of the dialogue is in French with no surtitles. Since the theme concerns the inability of people to communicate, it is amusing and ironic that the two characters who understand each other the best - Teddy and Lucille - neither speak French or English with any degree of fluency. It's their body language that speaks volumes.

While the dark underbelly of the story is reflected in a background of serial adultery, emotional abuse, sexual predation, premonitions of incest, and alcoholism, House & Garden on the whole is remarkably funny, particularly in performance. Andrew S. Paul's snappy direction mines the ironic subtext, with actors entering, exiting, and dressing the stage to great and humorous effect in House. And Melissa Hill Grande's staging makes use of all the physical possibilities of Garden's script in the space provided.

Mr. Giles as the bombastic Teddy is a wonder to behold, pontificating, posturing, and preening through most of the first show and great chunks of second. If you want to see an actor carry not one, but two plays on his shoulders, and run with them, this is your chance. Ms. Ruoti as his stage wife gives new meaning to emotional distance in marriage when she's not empathetically connected in motherhood to their daughter, whose portrayal by Ms. Darcy conveys utter sympathy. Mr. Mellott is convincing as Jake in his rite of passage as suitor, while the coda of picking up the pieces of marital discord is delivered with fidelity by Mr. Jackson. Even Ms. Hylton's emotionally unstable Joanna - not the sharpest blade in the pack - will look like she's wearing the laurels by the denouement and she is. Indeed it's a testimony to the work of the actors as well as directors and writer that you're likely to end up caring deeply about each of the main characters.

Mr. Ayckbourn's stock figures - almost from commedia dell'arte - were given their due, from Ms. Rawson's malapropping Izzie and Mr. Fuller's safe and sanctimonious Barry to Ms. Manton's provocative Pearl, Mr. Farris's silent Warn, and Ms. Glover's long-suffering, "it's only me" Lindy. Together with Ms. Jaye's exasperated Fran, they spelled comic relief. A cadre of child actors took turns in both plays to add verisimilitude and light humor to the festivities.

Gianni Downs' scenic design in House is a Georgian marvel in variations of powder blue, with backrooms suggestive and suitable for covert action, while in Garden the outdoors design was accented but functional. Zach Moore's lively sound design is formal and classical - almost quartet-like - in House - while ranging from discordant to dissonant (atonal oompah) in Garden. Jen Sturm generally has two different costumes for her actors to quick change into as they move from stage to stage. Lighting duties split between Christopher Popowich (House) and Cindy Limauro (Garden), were accomplished on cue, and all of the moving parts kept on track and brought into the station by Stage Managers Alicia DeMara (House) and Cory F. Goddard (Garden).

There's been a lot of discussion over the years as to whether the plays should be seen in a particular order. The playwright claims it does not matter and PICT seems to concur. From my standpoint, House should be viewed before Garden, at least the first time. You'll have a clearer idea of the big picture and it will make the subplots more understandable. If you see Garden first, I don't think that Joanna's breakdown will be meaningful without the context of the main story; Teddy's motivations and gravitation toward Lucille will seem pedestrian if not obscure; and the Garden characters will reveal too much about the main plot of House. But, if you do, that's life, I suppose.

Along with order there's ranking - which is the best? If you tend to prefer a traditional farce with a straightforward theatrical approach and setting, you'll probably prefer House. If you are more into absurdity, shtick, and a script that ties up all loose ends, maybe you'll favor Garden, particularly if sequels and prequels (or simulquels?) are up your alley. But definitely see them both.

For me the more interesting of the two is House because of its principal storyline, endearing main characters, and high energy. The subplots, featured more in Garden and involving the domestics and caterers and to a lesser extent the actress (and her driver), are not as compelling. Each play seems to be written (or overwritten) to fulfill Mr. Ayckbourn's formal requirements. While we've gone down this road with The Norman Conquests (1973-1974), The Revenger's Comedies (1989), and Time of My Life (1992), the casts there were limited and the storylines clearer, and a multi-night or time-shifting venture in the theater was anything but overdetermined. Here, on one level House & Garden remains. Still, Mr. Ayckbourn at 75 plays and counting remains the most prolific, original, and entertaining playwright in the English language. And if the combination is not his best offering, it's way up there: even a secondary play by Shakespeare or Shaw is leaps-and-bounds ahead of its class, one he's certainly in, and so too is House & Garden by Ayckbourn.

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Applause meter: Recommended for all general audiences, serious theatergoers, and for Ayckbourn fans, a must see. The logistics of the plays and cost considerations make it an extremely rare event in today's entertainment climate.

Program Notes: Excellent, you can download them.

Stars of the plays: 1) Martin Giles, one of the strongest performances I've seen this year, he even adlibbed during a curtain call for Garden, 2) Tied - Helena Ruoti & Anwen Darcy, each clicked separately and as a mother-daughter combo, and 3) Gianni Downs, Scenic Design for House, which could head to Broadway.

Climactic moment of the plays: Tent Collapse with Teddy (Mr. Giles) and Lucille (Nike Doukas), Garden, Act II.

Sound check: House, acceptable, except at intervals. Garden: some high sound levels during emotional events.

Photo credits: Suellen Fitzsimmons