[NEohioPAL] Review of "Communicating Doors" at ACT

[Bob Abelman]

Comedy, mystery come through ACT's 'Communicating Doors'

Bob Abelman

News-Herald, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times, Geauga Times Courier

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review appeared in the Times papers 2/3/11

 

Alan Ayckbourn's Communicating Doors, currently on stage at the Aurora Community Theatre, has all the makings of a major train wreck.

 

The play is a comedy that wants to be a murder mystery that has time travel as a central plot point.   As such, it mixes silly with sci-fi and suspense, which is an odd, incompatible and rather unsavory combination.  

 

As if that were not sufficiently unsettling, the time travel mechanism is, of all things and quite inexplicably, the conjoining doors between sixth floor suites at a posh London hotel. 

 

All theater requires its audience to be forgiving, to accept without question the incongruous parts of the pretense that drives the play.  Without this partnership in poetic license, everything falls apart.

 

Communicating Doors pushes the envelope on audience absolution.

 

The thing is, it is well worth the effort.  

 

The silly in this play is largely provided by a latex clad dominatrix named Phoebe.  She is hired simply to witness a confession by an ancient businessman, Reece Welles, whose wealth was gained by unscrupulous deals and by killing his first and second wives.

 

When his evil business partner and henchman Jullian learns of this confessional, he attempts to kill Phoebe, who escapes by (you guessed it) going through the conjoining doors and discovering their transportive powers.

 

The statuesque Denise Bernstein is a delicious Phoebe.  She is able to reveal her character's vulnerability and heart of gold while in stilettos and fishnets, and is hilarious when her calm collapses into hysterics.  It collapses frequently and with little provocation, which is one of the great joys in this production.   Think Lucille Ball on steroids.

 

The murder mystery kicks in when Phoebe travels through time and meets Welles' second wife, Ruella, who just happens to be occupying the same hotel room 20 years earlier.  The two of them plot to undo Reece and Jullian's foul deeds. This, of course, requires Ruella to travel through time to rescue and recruit Reece's first wife, Jessica, who just happens to be occupying the same hotel room on her wedding night 20 years earlier.    

 

Brenda Redmond and Amy Pelleg are terrific as Ruella and Jessica.  Their comic timing is superb, which allows them to find and refine every humorous nugget and absurd moment in the script.  When the three women team up in Act 2, this production kicks into a higher gear. In fact, director Roseann Canfora allows the play to become what it was really meant to be all along: a farce, complete with pratfalls and running gags.    

 

The suspense in this play is singlehandedly provided by an intimidating Don Bernardo as the evil Jullian, who discovers the doorway to the past and attempts to keep history from being rewritten by Phoebe.  The suspense is balanced by some well delivered comic relief courtesy of Adam Young, as the perpetually confused hotel security detective. 

 

Yes, there are times when this production asks for way too much forgiveness from the audience, even for a sci-fi comedy that wants to be a murder mystery and is really a farce.  

 

Doug Lillibridge is fine as a young and middle-aged Reece, but he is not quite believable in appearance or performance as an ailing, guilt-ridden septuagenarian.

  

Set designers Paul Chechak and Marianne Paul have built a very attractive suite, but their placement of the time travel portal is a real problem.  The playwright frequently leaves actors on stage when a character is transported and they must quickly disappear before that character returns to the same place at a different time.  It is expected that actors will inconspicuously vanish into the vast darkness of the stage or slip through invisible passageways. 

 

By placing the portal door at the center of the intimate ACT space, actors left on stage are forced to "disappear" by suddenly heading for the nearest bedroom door.  In full view, they duck inside as if they have some immediate and very important business to conduct.   

 

These few things temporarily suspend the audience's suspension of disbelief, and the rather corny ending threatens to turn this play of many temperaments into a melodrama.  Fortunately, the superb cast and the clever writing suck you right back into the silly, suspenseful pretense.  

 

Rather than being a train wreck, this play and this production of it takes us on a fun and very entertaining ride.

 

Communicating Doors continues through February 19 at Aurora Community Theatre, 115 E. Pioneer Trail, Aurora.  For tickets, which are $16, contact 330-562-1818 or www. auroracommunitytheatre.com.
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