Ayckbourn’s ‘Doors’ Opens Up a Gleeful Mix of Genres

Despite Alan Ayckbourn’s renown as a prolific creator of comedies for and about the middle class, he has never seemed as conventional as some of the playwrights who ply the same trade for similar audiences. Ayckbourn relishes experimenting with form. This element of “What will he think of next?” is what makes each new Ayckbourn play something to anticipate with pleasure.

In the latest to hit the Southland, “Communicating Doors,” at Laguna Playhouse, Ayckbourn gleefully combines the genres of farce, thriller and time-travel fantasy. While it’s not as funny as Ayckbourn’s own best farces, nor as chilling or as rewardingly ruminative as the best thrillers and time-travel fantasies, respectively, it is a surprisingly coherent and entertaining collision of genres.

First produced in 1994, the play jumps across time in 20-year increments--in the original, back to 1974 and ahead to 2014. Here, the dates of the action are 1980, 2000 and 2020.

The setting remains the same: a sixth-floor suite in the Regal Hotel in London, lavishly designed by Dwight Richard Odle. One of the suite’s doors, which ostensibly leads into a closet with another door on the other side, instead leads into the past or the future. Only the female characters figure this out; the men go back and forth in time too, but they’re unaware of what’s going on.

Whenever one of the women enters the magical door, that part of the set revolves, accompanied by lighting and sound effects, and she emerges in a different decade. The room’s furnishings remain the same across 40 years--perhaps a comment on the tastes in design of English hotels, as well as a way to speed up transitions.

In the opening scene, set in 2020, a dominatrix call girl who calls herself Poopay (Helen Wassell) becomes a confidant for an ailing 70ish businessman, Reece (Howard Shangraw), whose many sins include choosing to ignore the fact that his chief henchman Julian (Tim Monsion) murdered his two wives, back in 1987 and 2000. Reece wants Poopay to witness his signature on a written confession, but Julian intends to whack any such witness.

Miraculously, Poopay enters the Door and finds herself in the year 2000, where she is given the opportunity to warn Reece’s second wife, Ruella (Deanne Mercer Dennis). And not long thereafter, Ruella enters the same door in an attempt to warn Reece’s first wife, Jessica (Dea Lawrence). The women’s efforts in the two earlier decades are by turns thwarted or unwittingly assisted by the hotel detective, Harold (Tom Shelton).

The characters are not as middle class as in much of Ayckbourn’s work. Reece and his wives are wealthy. Poopay, on the other hand, is a hard-luck case whose parents are dead. Only Harold has middle-class aspirations, which aren’t getting him very far.

Nonetheless, Ayckbourn’s middle-class audience can enjoy watching the sins and headaches of the rich. They also can root for poor Poopay as, at one point in the narrative, a solidly middle-class existence appears possible for her.

As part-thriller, the play includes one exhilarating jolt. It’s in the second act, which also includes the highlight of the farce part of the play--a balcony scene that’s rather far removed from the one in “Romeo and Juliet.”

The time travel isn’t handled quite as smoothly, especially during a long and convoluted monologue for Poopay, in which she suddenly realizes that there is a hole in the logic of the cross-era safety net that she and Ruella have constructed. Of course, the rules of logic that Ayckbourn usually follows are relaxed somewhat when time travel is involved.

Ayckbourn makes a few marginal references to society in 2020. We can hear gunfire in the distance, and the dialogue mentions political unrest in passing. But these appear to be simple ways to indicate that we’re in the future rather than any kind of serious comment.

Generally, the ensemble is in fine form under Andrew Barnicle’s direction. English actresses Wassell and Dennis head the cast. Wassell’s vulnerable Poopay is sympathetic from the start--and she screams beautifully. Dennis effortlessly embodies the same can-do spirit that got England through the blitz. Shangraw’s adept at crossing the decades, and Shelton’s slovenly house dick is good for a few laughs.

* “Communicating Doors,” Laguna Playhouse, Moulton Theatre, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m.; Saturdays-Sundays, 2 p.m., except March 26, 2 p.m. only. Ends March 26. $21-$40. (949) 497-2787. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

Howard Shangraw: Reece

Dea Lawrence: Jessica

Deanne Mercer Dennis: Ruella

Tim Monsion: Julian

Helen Wassell: Phoebe (Poopay)

Tom Shelton: Harold

Written by Alan Ayckbourn. Directed by Andrew Barnicle. Set by Dwight Richard Odle. Costumes by Patricia Scarborough. Lighting by Paulie Jenkins. Sound by David Edwards. Stage manager Nancy Staiger.