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| Carol Channing, Sid Caesar. |
FOUR ON A GARDEN [Comedy/Crime/One-Acts/Marriage/Old Age/Romance/Sex] A/D: Abe Burrows; SC: a French play by Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Gredy; S: Oliver Smith; C: William McHone; L: Martin Aronstein; P: David Merrick i/a/w Beresford Productions, Ltd., and Charles Lowe Productions; T: Broadhurst Theatre; 1/20/71-3/20/71 (57)
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| Sid Caesar, Carol Channing. |
At a time when the preview period was much shorter
than it later became, well over a month of them preceded the opening of this flailing attempt by Broadway veteran Abe Burrows to adapt a French hit to
American characters. The original writers, who had better luck with the
Burrows-adapted and–directed Cactus
Flower, and Forty Carats, which
Burrows staged in Jay Presson Allen’s version, were so dismayed by the distance
traversed from their work that they asked to have their names removed from the
credits. Comic actor-writing couple Renee Taylor and Joseph Bologna are said to
have collaborated on the work with Burrows.
Four
on a Garden was conceived as an intermissionless
evening of four one-acts designed to furnish stars Sid Caesar and Carol
Channing with a vehicle for their comedic talents. They appeared as different
characters in each skit, as did most of the supporting cast, but the brownstone co-op apartment setting remained throughout.
Each one-acter deals with a pair of lovers, ranging
from middle-aged to elderly. The first, “House of Dunkelmayer,” is about a delicatessen
owner’s wife and her boyfriend. He returns to her arms from his refuge in
Alaska, to which he fled after the pair murdered her husband. Now, the threat
of a younger rival for her affections appears on the scene. Others in the sketch included George S. Irving as a TV repairman and future film star Tom[mmy] Lee Jones as a delivery man.
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| Sid Caesar, Carol Channing. |
“Betty” has to do with a middle-aged man who meets the
mother of his much younger fiancée (Jones), only to realize that she is an old flame
and that he may be his future wife’s father.
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| Sid Caesar, Carol Channing, Tom Lee Jones. |
In “Toreador” a house painter seduces a wealthy matron
in the apartment of her young, abusive lover (Jones). And in “The Swingers” an aged
couple meet at Roseland and come to the man’s apartment. However, their hopes
of having sex get no further than a discussion of age’s debilitating effects.
Despite valiant comic efforts by the famously funny leads,
the show was only intermittently amusing. Clive Barnes reported that the stars “do
their . . . best to save the most destructible vehicle since the good ship
Titanic.”