THEATER REVIEW : NEAT MYSTERY AT MISSION PLAYHOUSE

The sensibilities are a bit dated, but Enid Bagnold’s “The Chalk Garden” overcomes some tentative acting at the Mission Playhouse to spin its web of psychological mystery.

Edythe Pirazzini’s neat and perhaps too simple production of the play opened Thursday at the Mission Playhouse’s tiny Marina Village theater. Part of its fascination has little to do with the play itself; it is intriguing to watch the cast pivot its performances around one very comfortable, capable actress, Louise Merrim.

Merrim plays Mrs. St. Maugham, a wealthy grandmother whose English manor house is home to an emotionally troubled teen-age granddaughter (Carol Brinkmann), a bedridden butler named Pinkbell (never seen) who nevertheless commands strict adherence to upright traditions, an impudent manservant (William Gaylord), an unfriendly nurse (Trish Larson) and, as the play opens, a newly hired companion for the unstable Laurel, the mysterious Miss Madrigal (Gillian Hailes).

Mrs. St. Maugham may be surrounded by strange characters, but her own behavior is not quite odd enough by modern standards to be labeled eccentric. In Merrim’s hands, she is a spot of lemonade on a hot summer day, a witty, independent sort with a good sense for the irony of her circumstances, her increasing isolation from the societal tasks of the very rich and her total obedience to the dominating orders from Pinkbell. She is also quite captivated by her spoiled granddaughter.

The girl ran away from her widowed mother, Mrs. St. Maugham’s daughter Olivia (Belle Marie DuCharme), on the day of Olivia’s remarriage to a colonel. Laurel was only 12, but the story goes that she was subsequently molested in Hyde Park and taken in by her grandmother to be properly raised while her mother lived her life as a “drum follower,” traveling to British army outposts all around the Mediterranean.

Miss Madrigal’s presence brings change to the household, particularly to Laurel, and, to underline the metaphorical intent, symbolically to the “chalk garden,” the unfriendly plot of ground that no one could turn into a proper manor garden until Madrigal’s arrival. Her past is the mystery that keeps the action moving forward, while Bagnold probes various psychological models in a style made popular--but handled so much more capably--by Ibsen, Chekhov and friends.

With Merrim in confident control, breezing through all the subtleties that make one want to see more of her work, Pirazzini has brought the rest of the cast to a competent level of naturalized acting.

There are no deep probings of character here. Gaylord, for instance, as the mouthy servant Maitland, is not the darkly complicated man one expects, but he keeps surprising the watcher with a minimal but fresh interpretation. Brinkmann, as the unrestrained Laurel, at first seems too overdrawn (another beginner’s mistake), but when blended into the ensemble, her performance works as an infusion of energy.

Hailes, as Madrigal, never uses the full palette of her character’s past, but sketches in the required shadiness with slow movements, dark, hidden eyes and enough surface motivation to fulfill Madrigal’s catalytic purpose.

DuCharme’s Olivia and Jerry Moorehead’s Judge, who arrives to wrap up the mystery, are drawn with strong enough outlines to be recognizable, but neither performer has pushed for more detail.

The set, design uncredited, also holds just enough visual information to pass for a garden room--perhaps not in a large English mansion, but we get the idea. The costumes do as much, or as little, to set the proper time and place.

Ensemble acting seems to be Pirazzini’s main concern, and greatest achievement. At the level attained, the acting is blended, smoothed and subservient to the author’s purposes. It proves that undeveloped does not have to mean incapable, that good drama can be surveyed by actors still reaching for their fullest expression.

Whether or not Bagnold’s play has aged well enough to still be considered good drama is questionable. “The Chalk Garden” does manipulate the form--our desire to tie up loose ends is aroused. But the insinuations of Freudian psychology come across like ancient, dusty theories, long ago made trite and uninteresting by the tremendous pressures of contemporary existence.

It is sad that murder is no longer such a rare mystery, or that women criminals aren’t such a bizarre occurrence, but an unfortunate truth that cries for new dramas to explore the complexities of human behavior.

“THE CHALK GARDEN” By Enid Bagnold. Directed by Edythe Pirazzini. Technical staff: Dick Snyder, Brian Van de Wetering, Robert Cademy, Cindy Van de Wetering, Robert Pirazzini, Eileen Van de Wetering, Beth Farnsworth. With Gillian Hailes, William Gaylord, Monica Parady, Carol Brinkmann, Yopy Brunsting, Louise Merrim, Trish Larson, Belle Marie DuCharme, Jerry Moorehead. Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m., through Nov. 8, at the Mission Playhouse, 1936 Quivira Way, San Diego.