Programming Pavlov's Pups

By T.E. Kalem

Certain shows incite conditioned-reflex laughter. A quip rings a bell on stage, or a performer twitches a facial muscle, and the audience laughs, in much the same way that Pavlov's dogs salivated. The playgoer has been given nothing in the way of genuine comic nourishment. He has merely been cajoled into an empty-bellied laugh.

That's the way it is with Four on a Garden. All comedy is human comedy. One must be able to sympathize, recognize or identify with the person or the situation behind the gag. That was true in Cactus Flower, where one wanted the prim moth of a nurse to be transformed into a seductive butterfly. It was also true in Forty Carats, where one somehow cared whether or not the 40-year-old matron became the bride of her ardent 22-year-old lover.

Not the stuff of enduring or brilliant comedy, admittedly, but each a far, far better thing than Abe Burrows has done this time around in substantially reworking Garden from Barillet and Gredy, the original French authors of all three plays. Here are four different sex skits pasted together, each starring Carol Channing and Sid Caesar. In one, Caesar is a house painter and Channing a monied, molting society lovebird who is having the apartment redone for her cynical young lover. Guess who gets to use the bed? In another skit Caesar is a gamy garment-district mogul who sweeps Channing off the dance floor at Roseland. Since both are in their 70s, desire exceeds potency, and the two compromise on an antiquarian verbal waltz.

This pair of samples indicates the prevailing tone of the evening, which is selfconsciously "naughty" and as torpidly old-fashioned as a smirk. Channing and Caesar are the consolation prizes, and they could use a little consoling themselves--say a sudden revival of Hello, Dolly! or something with the truly masterly zaniness of Caesar's salad days?

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