PLAYGOER

Presenting Julie Haydon in Dale Eunson and Hagar Wilde's psychological thriller, the Cambridge Summer Theatre has spared none of the trimmings. Miss Haydon has long been a favorite with both Broadway and summer stock patrons; Andrew Mack's setting is bound to bring designing offers from the main stem, and the acting of the supporting cast is of an unusually high caliber.

And yet with all this to recommend it, "Guest in the House" does not quite come off either as entertainment or a penetrating psychological study. Miss Eunson and Miss Wilde have hit on a novel idea in having a neurotic girl consciously set out to wreck the happily married life of the Proctors, living in a small house near Trumbull, Connecticut. This kind of thing has undoubtedly happened in many households, in one form or another, and the co-authors never succeed in making the situation quite believable.

Much of the trouble with "Guest in the House" lies in its self-conscious dialogue. Last night the players seemed to feel that the burden of the play was on them and that they had to give something to the dialogue that just wasn't there to begin with. There was too much straining for the significant gesture and the meaningful phrases, resulting in the loss of much of the easy humor in the opening scenes.

As Evelyn Heath, the neurotic cousin, Julie Haydon, is properly whining and pasty-faced. Her part is an extremely difficult one to play, and only in some of her more intense scenes does she seem to be completely at ease. Robert Perry and Louise Valery draw adequate but rather broadly conceived portraits of a sensitive artist and his wife. Richard Hart, Marjorie Peggs, Kathryn Cameron round out the major speaking parts.