STAGE REVIEW : A ‘Garden’ on Barren Soil

NATIONAL CITY — Not much grows in Mrs. St. Maugham’s garden--it’s built on chalk. The woman can’t grow a flower any better than she can raise her granddaughter, Laurel, a precocious 15-year-old who brags of her prowess at lying, stealing and blackmail.

Unfortunately, not much grows in Enid Bagnold’s play “The Chalk Garden,” either, which, of course, is where Mrs. St. Maugham does her erstwhile gardening.

Lamb’s Players Theatre has primped and propped up the 1955 play, administered a little plastic surgery in the form of cuts and tucks (compressing three acts into two), and found a terrific young actress, Julianne Arnall, to play the teen-ager.

Even so, the play itself is not worth salvaging.

It is not just that the story depicts a way of life from a time that is long gone--Sussex country manor life in the 1950s. The contrived story chokes on its own symbolism and heavy-handedness.

Mrs. St. Maugham has a running feud with her daughter, Olivia, who grew up as withdrawn as her mother was eccentric. Partly to punish Olivia for defying her and partly because she believes she can do better for her granddaughter, Mrs. St. Maugham takes Laurel in and poisons her against her Olivia.

In a way, the story is similar to Lee Blessing’s contemporary “Eleemosynary,” now playing at the Elizabeth North Theatre. “Eleemosynary” tells the story of an eccentric grandmother who is at war with her withdrawn daughter for her granddaughter’s affection. But the twisted relationships in “Eleemosynary” appear realistic; it is clear they would take years to unravel.

“The Chalk Garden,” by contrast, provides one of those wonderfully convenient outside forces destined to set everything aright in the three scant weeks the play is meant to encompass. Enter Miss Madrigal, a governess with a dark and mysterious past who just happens to see in Laurel the girl Miss Madrigal once was.

She wants to save Laurel from following in her footsteps. And she is so strikingly successful, she’s like a Mary Poppins in a minor key. She gets Laurel to behave, gets the estate’s caretaker, Maitland, to smile, gets the mother and child to reunite, gets Mrs. St. Maugham to admit her failings and even gets the garden to grow.

Yes, good help is never hard to find in plays like this.

The direction by Robert Smyth, the theater’s artistic director, seems uncharacteristically patchy. By opening night, he still had not found a smooth flow to the abridged script.

He was also not helped by some of the casting choices.

Arnall is the one person perfect for her role; she also shone in the lead role of the Lamb’s production of “The Diary of Anne Frank.” Katherine Faulconer captures the eccentricity of Mrs. St. Maugham without the needed suggestion of conniving control. Kurt Reichert is too kindly as the hanging judge. Deborah Gilmour Smyth, who provides some of the finest acting moments as Miss Madrigal, seems too pure to convince anyone even for a moment that she is a potential murderess. Carmen Beaubeaux is fine as the mother, but there is no fire to her fireworks with Faulconer. Robert Stark settles in comfortably as Maitland, but he needs to show a more dramatic difference between his pre- and post-Miss Madrigal acquaintance.

The lovely set by Mike Buckley--a suggestion of a solarium without the glass--contrasts nicely with the claustrophobic feeling created by this volatile cast of characters. The lighting by Nathan Peirson is soft and lovely. The costumes by Veronica Murphy Smith are flattering and fitting.

Lamb’s Players Theatre is a quality company when it has a quality script, and Lamb’s fans will no doubt find their special moments to savor here as well. Unfortunately, in “The Chalk Garden,” the pickings are as meager as the soil in Mrs. St. Maugham’s garden.

“THE CHALK GARDEN”

By Enid Bagnold. Director is Robert Smyth. Set by Mike Buckley. Costumes by Veronica Murphy Smith. Lighting by Nathan Peirson. Stage manager is Sonja Anderson. With Robert Stark, Deborah Gilmour Smyth, Katherine Faulconer, Julianne Arnall, Carmen Beaubeaux and Kurt Reichert. At 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays and 2 p.m. Saturdays through Sept. 16, with a Sunday matinee on that day only. At 500 Plaza Blvd., National City. (619) 474-4542.