February 8,9,10,11,
15,16,17,18
22,23,24

2001

Director: George Ainslie

Britain's most versatile-- and prolific-- playwright gives us a time-travel thriller that's still as funny as the best of his comedies.  Hapless dominatrix Poopay Dayseer (her version of Poupée Désirée) goes to a call at a fabulous London hotel, only to find that her customer wants her to smuggle his dying confession past the partner-in-crime who's been watching him like a hawk.  In particular, he confesses to acquiescing in the partner's successive murders of his two wives many years before.  When the partner breaks in on them she barely escapes to what looks like a closet, but turns out to be a revolving room that deposits her into the same hotel suite TWENTY YEARS BEFORE-- the very suite in which Ruella, wife number two, is about to be murdered.

From here on the play centers on Poopay and Ruella: their hastily formed and deepening friendship, their chase through time and distance to save themselves and wife number one, and their emerging understanding of each other's worlds.  Like a good toboggan run, Communicating Doors packs faster and faster reverses near the end, and leaves us with a feeling of great satisfaction.