After yielding precedence to New York and Chicago, patient Boston's turn to live with father has arrived at last. And Oscar Serlin's production of the play based upon Clarence Day's entertaining book removes any slight suffered by the Hub in taking third place. Life With Father has but a whisper of a plot, but it is a roar of entertainment from breakfast table to breakfast table.

In a play like Messrs. Lindsay and Crouse's adaptation which does not pretend to dramatic intensity or profundity, the burden of success necessarily lies upon the direction and a cast able to take full advantage of the innumerable laugh-provoking situations. Oscar Serlin provides both. Bretaigne Windust has captained the cast to a rollicking march that rarely tires. He commands a company that is cut to the most exacting measures.

As father, Louis Calhern naturally sets the pace; the family and its inevitably visiting relations serve principally as objects of his self-important whim. One minute he is crying "damn the New Haven, another wreck!", the next finds him lecturing, with many an ejaculated "My God" at the sight of the monthly bills, upon the necessity of running the family on a "sound business basis." Here in truth is a one-man band playing with all the noise and car-splitting trumpet section of a high school brass combo. But there is gold beneath the brass, and father's few off-guard moments display its fine carat.

In Dorothy Gish's performance as the frivolous and enduring wife of it all is revealed a threat to Mary Boland's reign in this line. "Vinnie's" utter lack of practicality affords a refreshing contrast to father's hard-headedness. She explains to "Clare, dear" that Junior's new suit "won't cost a cent because I exchanged it for that china dog I charged at the store." "And," with an innocent little smile, "they can't charge you for the dog, because we don't have it." This irrefutably naive logic leaves father speechless and the audience howling.

Boston has acquired a practically new playhouse in the remodeled Civic Repertory Theatre. Its owners, the New England Town Hall, Inc., should be congratulated for giving it such an auspicious opening. If they can maintain the high entertainment standard set by Life With Father, they need little fear for its success.