Albee Play Opens at Bostonian Hotel

Edward Albee at his bitterest is not necessarily Albee at his best. But the Theatre Company of Boston's present production of "The American Dream" is good theatre indeed.

Coupled with the Albee production is another shorter one act play, considerably less fortunate in both material and execution, "Picnic on the Battlefield" by Arrabel.

David Wheeler, who directed both productions, has wisely treated Albee's script as lightly as he can. He has ignored as much as possible the overly-Freudian and rather tedious general indictment of the family and emphasized the destructively funny--and best--portions of the play. He seems to have lavished particular care on the many short caricatures of individual features of American family life, a fact which goes a long way toward explaining the success of the present production.

Jo Lane as Mommy is simply wonderful. Her description of her shopping trip in the opening scene is alone worth the price of admission. Throughout the play, her manner is perfect, although occasionally her large stature makes her poses seem held overly long. Paul Price plays a properly effeminate Daddy opposite Mrs. Lane, but his gestures too often seem forced. I have a similar quarrel with Harriet Roger's Grandma. Wriggling, swaying, and stooping after a while become obvious devices, but still Mrs. Roger has an excellent sense of timing, and her Grandma is thoroughly likable. Jean Comstock turns in a creditable performance as Mrs. Barker. Alexander Pertzoff's set is obviously the one Albee intended for his play. The frankfurter sofa, the hamburger easy chair, and the malted milk end table are wonderfully ingenious and seem perfectly natural.

Only George Parker as the Young Man flaws the production. His unexpressive and ever-present smile conveys nothing, and he rarely seems to understand his part.

Most of these faults are picayune and do not detract significantly from this excellent production. Unfortunately, Arrabel's one-acter fares much worse It is a light anti-war fantasy, which does have its high points.

Zapo (Dustin Hoffman) is Momma's boy draftee at a lonely outpost whose parents come to cheer him up in the midst of battle. They are joined at their picnic by a similarly uncourageous enemy soldier, and the plot can hardly go anywhere from there.

In fact, it serves only as a frame on which to hang a few clever lines, and, at least on opening night, the timing on these lines was not particularly good. M. Tapan (Paul Benedict) and Mme. Tapan (Jo Lane) both nearly save the show with their marvelous facial expressions and perfect comic gestures.

But Hoffman has played Zapo as a complete childish nincompoop, a character interpretation which makes many of the incidents and many of Zapo's lines seem simply stupid, instead of ingenuous or funny. Nonetheless, his opening scene is delightful, and M. and Mme. Tapon sitting under an umbreila watching the battle is another very nice scene.

The Albee is well-done, and the Arrabel is short and plays first--quite a nice arrangement since you don't have to worry about being late.