I was somewhat confused by John Guare's play Gardenia….

Both Gardenia and Lydie Breeze, seen earlier this season, are part of a series of plays written, according to a note in the program, "for Adele Chatfield Taylor." Only one character—the idealistic writer Joshua Hickman—survives the time-span from the end of Gardenia to the start of Lydie Breeze, although we hear much of the political aspirations of another, Amos Mason, and one play is very much the sequel to the other.

However, while a grand design is clearly intended, it is more apparent in the intention than in the outcome. For, and here is the confusion, these two plays do not really mesh.

Also, when Gardenia is placed side by side with the dreamplay, Lydie Breeze, the differences in style are surprising—for while Gardenia has a touch of Chekhov to it, in Lydie Breeze Guare's 19th-Century...