Boston's dim summer entertainment picture has an abnormal grow this week while John Gielgud and his troupe are stopping over for a few days on their way home. The play is "Love for Love," by William Congreve; it is a hearty, yet unsophisticated play, written in the late Seventeenth Century, when neither bitterness nor sentimentality dominated the English stage. Most of the exists seem to be to bedchambers, and the only pulling of punches is done by the Boston censors. If "Love for Love" is a "classic," it is only because people still enjoy seeing it after 250 years.

The reason that the play is not produced more often is that it requires an intelligent and mature production far beyond the capacities of any of our repertory companies. There is very little lacking in the Gielgud production. After a reasonably perfect rendering of "The Importance of Being Earnest" in Boston and New York, the company was enlarged for the present, more ambitions work. The chief addition is Cyril Ritchard, who plays Tattle, described in the program as "a half-witted bean, vain of his amours, yet valuing himself for secrecy." Favored with the most rewarding role, Ritchard struts about, using always the right high-pitched tone and the right decadent sweep of his silk handkerchief.

As for the regulars from "Earnest," Gielgud plays his part of the penniless, enamored black sheep, just straightly enough to win the genuine sympathy of the audience. The very funny scene in which he pretends to be mad is Congreve's best, and Gielgud's ability to handle more serious roles is shown in his tragi-comie declaration of love to Angelica. Pamela Brown plays the latter with the necessary restraint to make the character credible beneath the neat stylization. Her quiet, satirical mugging helps give the standard part another dimension. Expertly entangled among the various intrigues of plot are Robert Flemyng and Jessie Evans, as two rather rough-hewn characters, and John Kidd as an old many-times-cuckolded astronomer.

Gielgud's direction of "Love for Love" keeps the thing moving fast, and never lets the general spirit of good-humor escape. The settings, especially that of a neo-classic drawing room (with adjoining bedrooms) are as authentic as they are waggish. The play is going to be in town only a few more days. If there is plenty of time it might be a good idea to read it before going, but inability to do that should keep no one away.