Acting is Happiness
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Posted on Thu, Oct. 20, 2005
MPC's time travel comedy is deliciously amusing
By NATHALIE PLOTKIN
Herald Correspondent
Instead of back to the future, it's forward to the past and wouldn't it be wonderful if we were able to use our hard-won experience to undo the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that life threw at us?
So, suspend rational thinking and the realization that life just doesn't work that way and enjoy a deliciously amusing and intriguingly exciting evening of high-flying intelligent hilarity with the MPC Theatre Company's production of "Communicating Doors."
English playwright Alan Ayckbourn has taken the idea of time travel and woven an intricate storytelling web and one that makes it necessary for the audience to pay close attention to the nuances and convolutions of his plot line, but it's definitely worth the effort. The theatrical rewards are very high.
The play structure relies on the doors which connect hotel rooms internally, only here by going through these doors, the protagonists travel back through their lives in 20-year segments.
Jennifer Muniz, in a sparkling star turn, plays Poupay Dayseer who, in the year 2014 is a "specialist sexual consultant" (a leather-clad dominatrix).
She is called to a five-star hotel by a wealthy ailing businessman to witness and sign his death-bed confession about the evils he has perpetrated in his quest for power and wealth. However, doing so puts her life in danger.
Muniz creates a character full of human foibles, but also of great strength, presence of mind and determination.
She carries her lengthy role with a delightful clarity of purpose. She also looks terrific in Constance Gamiere's very suggestive costume.
She starts out as a hardened, uneducated girl who is simply doing the only job she knows.
But in the course of events she develops and shows much warmth, feeling and understanding of the people she is involved with. This was a fine theatrical achievement.
Robert Colter as the repentant sinner Reece Wells, who had also quietly abetted the murder of his two wives, has to age 40 years during the action and does so very convincingly.
Though the role is brief, his initial scene as a dying man trying to get his confession witnessed is very well played.
Through the time-travel mechanism, the two murdered wives are brought back to life in their time periods, are warned of what had befallen them the first time around and are given a second chance at life.
The first wife, Jessica, played by Ana Warner in honeymoon lingerie and a long blonde wig, is flighty and unbelieving, but eventually catches on, alters her fate, saves the day and wreaks retribution on her would-be murderer.
Teresa del Piero, as the second wife, is the pillar of strength around whom the mad intricacies of the plot are centered.
Del Piero plays a difficult lengthy role with maturity and just the right amount of wit and asperity at the weaknesses of the other women.
As the villainous and coldly murderous Julian Goodman, James Brady has a blood-curdling manner, but could project even more menace as he threatens the women he's about to murder.
And to round out this sterling cast, Jody Gilmore, in his usual flexible fashion, does a fine characterization of the reluctantly cooperative hotel security manager.
William Strom's elegant set of the hotel room is perfectly arranged to facilitate the numerous arrivals and departures of the players.
The time-travel closet setup is a fascinating revolving mechanism with brightly flashing lights and is almost worth seeing just for itself. Portentious music punctuates the action very effectively.
Director Peter de Bono has his players maintaining a taut pace while still projecting the madly hilarious complexities of the script.
It's no use trying to outline the plot since there is so much going on back and forth in time while enjoyably rewriting history.
Some judicious pruning seems to be called for because the playwright seems to have been carried away by his own inventive wit and scintillating dialog, but that awarded the audience with a lengthy embarrassment of riches.
Posted on Thu, Oct. 20, 2005
MPC's time travel comedy is deliciously amusing
By NATHALIE PLOTKIN
Herald Correspondent
Instead of back to the future, it's forward to the past and wouldn't it be wonderful if we were able to use our hard-won experience to undo the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that life threw at us?
So, suspend rational thinking and the realization that life just doesn't work that way and enjoy a deliciously amusing and intriguingly exciting evening of high-flying intelligent hilarity with the MPC Theatre Company's production of "Communicating Doors."
English playwright Alan Ayckbourn has taken the idea of time travel and woven an intricate storytelling web and one that makes it necessary for the audience to pay close attention to the nuances and convolutions of his plot line, but it's definitely worth the effort. The theatrical rewards are very high.
The play structure relies on the doors which connect hotel rooms internally, only here by going through these doors, the protagonists travel back through their lives in 20-year segments.
Jennifer Muniz, in a sparkling star turn, plays Poupay Dayseer who, in the year 2014 is a "specialist sexual consultant" (a leather-clad dominatrix).
She is called to a five-star hotel by a wealthy ailing businessman to witness and sign his death-bed confession about the evils he has perpetrated in his quest for power and wealth. However, doing so puts her life in danger.
Muniz creates a character full of human foibles, but also of great strength, presence of mind and determination.
She carries her lengthy role with a delightful clarity of purpose. She also looks terrific in Constance Gamiere's very suggestive costume.
She starts out as a hardened, uneducated girl who is simply doing the only job she knows.
But in the course of events she develops and shows much warmth, feeling and understanding of the people she is involved with. This was a fine theatrical achievement.
Robert Colter as the repentant sinner Reece Wells, who had also quietly abetted the murder of his two wives, has to age 40 years during the action and does so very convincingly.
Though the role is brief, his initial scene as a dying man trying to get his confession witnessed is very well played.
Through the time-travel mechanism, the two murdered wives are brought back to life in their time periods, are warned of what had befallen them the first time around and are given a second chance at life.
The first wife, Jessica, played by Ana Warner in honeymoon lingerie and a long blonde wig, is flighty and unbelieving, but eventually catches on, alters her fate, saves the day and wreaks retribution on her would-be murderer.
Teresa del Piero, as the second wife, is the pillar of strength around whom the mad intricacies of the plot are centered.
Del Piero plays a difficult lengthy role with maturity and just the right amount of wit and asperity at the weaknesses of the other women.
As the villainous and coldly murderous Julian Goodman, James Brady has a blood-curdling manner, but could project even more menace as he threatens the women he's about to murder.
And to round out this sterling cast, Jody Gilmore, in his usual flexible fashion, does a fine characterization of the reluctantly cooperative hotel security manager.
William Strom's elegant set of the hotel room is perfectly arranged to facilitate the numerous arrivals and departures of the players.
The time-travel closet setup is a fascinating revolving mechanism with brightly flashing lights and is almost worth seeing just for itself. Portentious music punctuates the action very effectively.
Director Peter de Bono has his players maintaining a taut pace while still projecting the madly hilarious complexities of the script.
It's no use trying to outline the plot since there is so much going on back and forth in time while enjoyably rewriting history.
Some judicious pruning seems to be called for because the playwright seems to have been carried away by his own inventive wit and scintillating dialog, but that awarded the audience with a lengthy embarrassment of riches.