AYCKBOURN'S COMMUNICATING DOORS |
REVIEW by Willard Manus Alan Ayckbourn is
one of the most prolific playwrights in the history of the theater. COMMUNICATING
DOORS, now playing at the Odyssey Theatre, is his sixty-first play--and
it shows. A contrived, Twilight Zone black comedy about people in a hotel
room who walk through a door and find themselves transported back and
forth in time, the play has nothing fresh or worthy to say, and is little
more than a theatrical exercise, a triumph of technique over content.
Wordy, too long at 2 1/2 hours, and directed at a screechy, one-note pace
by Barry Philips, COMMUNICATING DOORS mixes murder, kinky sex, marriage
and time-travel in uneasy, less-than-credible fashion. The 6-person cast--Amy
Chaffee, Ron Bottina, Michael Carr, Lisa Pelikan, Alan Brooks and Rachel
Lyeria--work their tails off trying to make this dud play come to life,
but it just doesn't happen. |
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