Everything in the Garden is my favorite kind of theater experience--it promises little and delivers a lot. Even in the program notes, director Craig Bradshaw downplays this production, describing his cast as simply "capable," and the play merely "well written." Mr. Bradshaw has a talent for understatement, and does the play a great disservice with this lukewarm description. The script--written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Edward Albee--is not merely well written, but is wickedly charming, surprising, meaningful, funny, and disturbing. It reveals with unstinting accuracy the omnipresent hypocrisy and hubris lurking in the shadows of capitalist America, without resorting to harsh judgments or sanctimonious pontificating. It drags all skeletons out of the closet and lays them bare for the world to examine, only to pack them away again in a conscious decision to let sleeping dogs lie. The cast, led by Amy Fleetwood and James Venturini, is far more than capable. Through a combination of solid direction, strong character choices, and sheer talent, they breathe life into the script, creating fun, sympathetic, recognizable, and entertaining characters.
Even the deficits of this production work to its advantage. The tiny converted garage space that serves as the home of Theater Under the Influence provides the intimate setting necessary to fully appreciate the performance. The costuming and make-up, which make the neighborhood women look like insane drag queens and the men like Thurston Howell III wannabes, accurately convey the bourgeois excess of the time. And even when Richard (James Venturini) was less than word perfect in the delivery of his lines, he managed to use it to his benefit as a powerful character choice, portraying Richard as badly spoken and indecisive. You know it's a damn good show when even the fuck-ups play well.
