The Chalk Garden

Winner of the 1956 Tony Award for Best Play, Enid Bagnold’s The Chalk Garden is a provocative and poetic comedy that unfolds like a detective story. The wealthy and eccentric Mrs. St. Maugham is raising her overindulged teenaged granddaughter much as she is trying to raise the flowers in her sterile garden: by sheer will power – and with the aid of her peculiar ex-con bulter. When they advertise for a governess, they get much more than they expected when into the household comes the enigmatic and rather mysterious Miss Madrigal. She begins by coaxing the flowers to grow in the chalky garden of the title and proceeds to help the young granddaughters blossom as well.