Brits don’t get more delightfully eccentric than the residents of Mrs. St. Maugham’s Sussex manor house in Enid Bagnold’s 1955 charmer The Chalk Garden, the latest Theatricum Botanicum gem.

Audience members familiar with the play’s 1964 Deborah Kerr-Hayley Mills movie adaptation will no doubt be surprised to learn that the Ross Hunter soap opera (“A girl on the verge of womanhood. A woman on the edge of loneliness.”) started its life as the droll Broadway comedy now tickling funny bones under Topanga skies.

 Melora Marshall stars as the mysterious Miss Madrigal, hired to look after Laurel (Carmen Flood), the precocious fifteen-year-old granddaughter of onetime socialite Mrs. St. Maugham (Ellen Geer), because to be honest, of the four expected applicants, just three showed up, and only Miss Madrigal stuck around for an interview.

Not that Laurel’s soon-to-be governess gives much if anything away during her Q&A with the lady of the manor.

 Indeed, considerably more is learned about Miss Madrigal’s future charge, namely that she is fond of screaming and setting things ablaze, antisocial behavior that could well stem from having been left on her grandmother’s doorstep by a woman Laurel describes as a “Jezebel … so overloaded with sex that it sparkles.”

 Troublemaker or not, that doesn’t stop Mrs. St. Maugham from doing her best to stop Laurel’s pregnant mother Olivia (Willow Geer), no longer the “coltish, inept” girl she one was but a woman “warmed and praised and made to speak,” from showing up and whisking Laurel away.

 Completing The Chalk Garden’s ever so quirky cast of principals is Maitland (Michael Nehring), Mrs. St. Maugham’s self-described “kingpin, pivot, manservant, maidservant, go-between, and fire extinguisher,” though perhaps not for much longer given the previous butler’s propensity to issue orders from the upstairs bedroom where he remains under twenty-four-hour nurse’s care.

If it’s not already clear, glossy Hollywood sudser this is not, but rather the perfect comedic complement to the witch-hunt hysterics of the concurrently running The Crucible or Haiti’s swashbuckling melodrama.

Not that there isn’t plenty of mystery behind Miss Madrigal’s unwillingness (or inability) to produce letters of reference, a reticence suggesting either no past whatsoever or something quite unspeakable to hide.

Under Susan Angelo’s deft direction, the Theatricum Botanicum cast deliver one sparkling performance after another, beginning with star turns by a venerable stage vet and a young Topanga native on summer vacation from Carnegie Mellon no less.

 Hidden under the frumpiest of wigs, the plainest of tweed suits, and the sourest of scowls, Marshall’s masterful Miss Madrigal is matched by the carefully cultivated precociousness and oddly marionette-like gestures of Flood’s Laurel, each as deliciously quirky as the other.

The elder Geer is once again simply divine as the garden-crazed Mrs. St. Maugham and so is her real-life daughter as her stage progeny’s longing-to-be-maternal Olivia.

 Nehring is a rib-tickling bundle of eccentricities as the much put-upon Maitland while the esteemed William Dennis Hunt does his best deus ex machina as an eleventh-hour-appearing Judge.

 Cindy Guastaferro, Annette Petrochet, and Holly Hawk deliver a trio of nifty cameos as (respectively) a couple of not terribly gung-ho job applicants and ailing butler Pinkbell’s beleaguered nurse.

 Scenic designer Rich Rose and properties master Sydney Russell have transformed the all-purpose Botanicum stage into faded elegance of Mrs. St. Maugham’s country manor, the Topanga hills providing a perfect backdrop for the lady of the house’s gardening, and Jordan-Marc Diamond’s period costumes, Zachary Moore’s subtle lighting, and Israel Heller’s expert sound design are just as splendid.

Hawk is assistant director. Elna Kordijan is stage manager and Caitlyn Ross is assistant stage manager. Julia Wilkins and Ryan Dohner are production assistants. Skylar Johnson is lighting associate.

Maya Brattkus, Tim Halligan, and Nicole Knudsen are understudies.

The pure lime of Mrs. St. Maugham’s “chalk” garden may be incapable of producing even the most miserable of blossoms, but with the gifted artists of Theatricum Botanicum bringing it to rich and fruitful life, Enid Bagnold’s The Chalk Garden blooms quite gloriously indeed.

The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga.
www.theatricum.com

–Steven Stanley
July 28, 2018
Photos: Liam Flanders, Susan Angelo

Tags: Enid Bagnold, Los Angeles Theater Review, Theatricum Botanicum