HOUSE and GARDEN, Goodman Theatre. Alan Ayckbourn’s latest work is one first-rate dramatic comedy divided between two entertaining but uneven plays, performed simultaneously in adjacent theaters. Ayckbourn portrays a day in the life of a quaint, insular English village. The action is set on the sprawling estate of Teddy and Trish Platt: House (performed on the Albert Ivar Goodman stage) depicts the goings-on in the 18th-century manor house while Garden (played in the smaller Owen Bruner Goodman theater) takes place in the garden. Teddy has been having an affair with his neighbor Joanna Mace, unstable wife of his friend Giles, who’s ignorant of the adultery though Trish is keenly cognizant of it; so are the couples’ teenage children, Sally Platt and Jake Mace. Teddy, who’s being recruited for political office by an old school chum–the serpentine Gavin Ryng-Mayne–dumps Joanna in an attempt to nip scandal in the bud, but the move brings to a boil long-simmering discontents in both marriages and fosters a romance between Jake and Sally.
