THEATER : Ayckbourn Keeps All Options Open

Writing a play, or any literature for that matter, can be a maze of choices. Who should be in the important first scenes? What direction should this or that relationship take? Which ending would be best?

In “Intimate Exchanges,” on South Coast Repertory’s Second Stage through Feb. 28, playwright Alan Ayckbourn doesn’t settle for specifics--he lets the options carry him away.

The British playwright, known for the theatricality and artifice that drapes many of his contemporary farces (“How the Other Half Loves” may be the most familiar to American audiences), wrote the comedy with a basic plot but 16 possible variations, each with a different ending.

Everything starts with a woman wondering if she’ll have a cigarette. Permutations abound after that first decision, and it was up to SCR and director Mark Rucker to pick the version they wanted.

They managed to settle on one, subtitled “Events on a Hotel Terrace,” but with two distinctly opposite endings. Each conclusion will be offered on successive nights through the production’s run.

The story involves six characters, all played by veteran SCR actors Richard Doyle (most recently seen in SCR’s “Our Country’s Good”) and Kandis Chappell (who starred in another Ayckbourn comedy at SCR, “Woman in Mind”). “Intimate Exchanges” centers on Celia, a middle-class wife stuck in a bad marriage, and Lionel, the gardener at an English prep school where Celia’s husband, Toby, is headmaster.

Celia and Lionel, mutually attracted, embark on a relationship of sorts. Lionel becomes more than infatuated, forcing Celia to examine the nature of her marriage.

The climactic final scene determines the fate of all three, the 33-year-old Rucker explained.

“We can’t decide which ending is more satisfying,” he added. “Some people like one; some people like the other. I really can’t pick a favorite.

“We don’t expect people (to come both nights) just to see each ending. . . . We did them both because that’s (the nature) of Ayckbourn; he’s not into button-down endings that most Americans may be accustomed to.”

It was just that quality that inspired Times drama critic Sylvie Drake to describe the show this way: “Press that key and this door will open. Press another and that door will open. . . . The fun, of course, is derived as much from seeing just how two actors will get the job done as from watching to see how Ayckbourn is going to get them out of whatever predicament he’s got them in.”

But not all critics have agreed. When “Intimate Exchanges” was staged in 1991 at the North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach, another Times reviewer said “it is a poorly conceived ‘concept play.’ The 1982 comedy hinges on a few theatrical gimmicks that grow tiresome in a hurry. (It) cannot maintain audience interest for more than a few minutes at a time.”

Ayckbourn and his plays are frequently criticized, maybe as often as praised. He’s been described as “Moliere for the middle-classes,” but also “the English Neil Simon,” a clear knock. It’s this glibness of style, this reach for the easy laugh, that draws the barbs, and Rucker says that’s unfair.

“I have nothing bad to say about Neil Simon because I haven’t been watching his work lately, but I think it’s a disservice to Ayckbourn to give him that label,” he said.

“I’ve come to respect his specificity. He’s similar to Chekhov in the way his comedies are character-driven. At his best, he takes us to a deeply poignant moment and one that also makes us laugh. Like Chekhov, he’s a humanist writer.”