The year 1959 provided serious theatregoers in the Boston area with a good deal of summer dramatic fare. The season was the most active since 1956; and if, on the whole, it did not quite match in quality the level of 1957, the highest within memory, it still offered plenty of things to be especially thankful for.

The burnt of the burden fell on four institutions: the Cambridge Drama Festival in the new Metropolitan Boston Arts Center Theatre; the Group 20 Players in Wellesley's Theatre-on-the-Green; the Boston Summer Playhouse in the Charles Playhouse on Boston's Warrenton Street; and the Tufts Arena Theatre on the Tufts campus in Medford. In addition, Harvard itself was the site of one production, staged by a group of energetic students; and M.I.T. presented a one-man theatrical evening.

Most newsworthy was the inaugural season of the MeBAC Theatre across the Charles River in Brighton. The structure is the first State-constructed theatre in the country and the first professional theatre to be built in the Boston area since 1925. The actual erecting began on May 7. Bad weather and a series of mishaps threatened to make the July 9 opening impossible. At 7:30 p.m. on July 9 steamrollers and stake-drivers were still working. But at 8 o'clock Governor Furcolo was able to officiate at the impressive ribbon-cutting ceremony, backed by the firing of cannon and the blaring of medieval trumpets.

The Theatre itself is circular; and its pioneering design includes a titled, inflated, lens-shaped nylon roof 145 feet in diameter. With a maximum seating capacity of about 1800, the Theatre has a stage flexible enough to accommodate either proscenium or three-quarters-arena productions.

Cambridge Drama Festival

For the first season the Metropolitan District Commission ceded the use of the new Theatre to the Cambridge Drama Festival, which offered three productions over a period of nine and a half weeks. As it turned out--and quite accidentally--all three were by Shakespeare. Fortunately, Jacques Barzun's recent statement, "I agree with that small but articulate group of people who would rather not see Shakespeare acted"--shocking for a man of his staggering brilliance and perception--fell on deaf ears.

In choosing the first show, the C.D.F. naturally wanted a festive work of acknowledged merit. It settled on Twelfth Night and engaged the imaginative Herbert Berghof as director. Berghof, in keeping with the festive occasion, decided to turn the play into a "music and dance extravaganza." He employed as much music as possible, composed or arranged in neo-Elizabethan style by Andre Singer. He interpreted Malvolio's phrase, "the fool's zanies," as "the Fool's zanies," and created two new characters--a singing zany and a dancing zany--to accompany Feste the Fool. He also did some textual pruning and excised completely the taunting of Malvolio in prison, thereby deliberately upsetting the delicately balanced construction of this last and subtlest of the Bard's true comedies.

Even those who decried Berghof's liberties had to admit that the resulting show was exuberantly entertaining and contained several brilliantly staged elaborations. Siobhan McKenna's Viola was a gem. As the play's one honest, sincere, and normal person, who must spend most of the time abnormally disguised as a young boy, Miss McKenna conveyed a zestful boyishness without ever losing her innate womanliness; and she paid more attention than anyone else to the poetic qualities of the text.

Tammy Grimes was a perfect Maria. Skedaddling about with devastating infectiousness, Miss Grimes made it clear that Maria's wits were as sharp as her own nose and chin. The other two superlative performances were the Dancing Zany of Geoffrey Holder, who designed the choreography and also sang; and the light-footed Singing Zany of Russell Oberlin, the world's finest countertenor. In other major roles, Fritz Weaver's Malvolio, Zachary Scott's Orsino, and George Mathews' Sir Toby were disappointing.

'Macbeth'

Retaining Miss McKenna as a star, the C.D.F. next offered Macbeth. For the title role, it played a long shot by engaging Jason Robards, Jr. and lost. Although Robards' performances in 20th-century American works have been unbeatable, he proved himself as yet vocally unequipped to cope with the demands of Shakespearean language. He conveyed much through his face and eyes; and his delivery of some short, forceful phrases was admirable. But the longer speeches tripped him up; he could not convey the sense, the rhythm, and the grandeur. He breathed improperly, so that he often had to pause at the end of a line when the thought demanded that he go right on to the next.

In his first Shakespearean assignment, director Jose Quintero made some miscalculations; but some of his staging was ingenious and effective, such as the scenes involving the spine-chilling trio of Weird Sisters. The show was visually gripping; and much of the credit must go to the lighting of David Hays '52, which was as inspired as I have seen in a long time.

Miss McKenna's Lady Macbeth was a remarkable and consistent performance. She made it clear that she did not covet the crown just for her own sake but wanted her husband to be king at any cost because she was so much in love with him. Her tricky deportment at the banquet and her exit therefrom were wonderfully handled.

The traversal of the sleepwalking scene proved to be highly controversial. Miss McKenna injected a lot of agitation into it and pitched it high--an approach that drew the fire of some of the critics in the daily press. These evidently conceive of somnambulism as always graceful, and of somniloquy as exclusively a lyrical, if not whispered nocturne. This is, to be sure, the customary way of doing the scene; but Miss McKenna's way was valid and convincing, too. Her critics should have remembered that one can do violent things in one's sleep; and that Lady Macbeth's mind has disintegrated and is tormented by a jagged and distorted patchwork of horrible thoughts, echoes, and memories. Yes, Miss McKenna knew what she was doing. And with this addition to her long roster of great portrayals she clearly had earned the right to the title of the world's first lady of the theatre.

'Much Ado About Nothing'