Telling time Telling time (September 21, 2001)

Bus Barn's "Communicating Doors" an intricate, comic thriller

by Laura Reiley

Someone at Bus Barn Stage Company is obsessed with time travel.

Last year there was Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia," a whodunit that features 20th-century characters invading the early 19th century, as well as Eric Overmyer's "On the Verge" that follows three intrepid travelers in their trek through the future. To kick off its seventh season, Bus Barn has chosen a work that traverses some of the same fourth-dimensional ground, written by one of England's most prolific playwrights, Alan Ayckbourn.

"Communicating Doors" is an intricate, comic thriller, in which a London sex specialist from the year 2014 stumbles onto a murder plot that sends her traveling back in time using a tricky set of hotel doors. She and two other women, from 1974 and 1994 respectively, slip back and forth in time trying to rewrite history and prevent their own violent demises.

The action begins in 2014 in an empty hotel room -- we know it's a hotel room because, even in the future, hotel rooms have the telltale bland art (waves crashing with a lighthouse in the distance), antiseptic furniture and robust use of navy blue (kudos to set designer Kit Wilder for getting it just right). The observant among us will know at once that it's a European hotel -- the Regal Hotel in London -- as the bathroom contains a bidet, something Americans either smirk about or recoil from in horror.

Either way, the bidet is central to the plot, as the repository of the withered and wicked Reece's (played with great throat clearing and geezery verve by James Marbury) confession. What is he confessing to? Buying low and selling high, insider trading, healthy earnings in a bull market and, oh, the murder of his two wives. He didn't do it himself, but the two wives were offed by Reece's longtime business associate, Julian (Craig Engen, a ringer for Mephistopheles or some other devilish ne'er-do-well).

Julian has a vested interest in seeing that the note never emerges from the bidet, but Poopay, a heart-of-gold dominatrix hired by Reece to bear witness to his confession, mucks up the works. In full leather regalia (there are no advances in dominatrix-wear in the future?), Keite Davis portrays Poopay as a high-strung, low-class (she has one of those British accents that slithers around England, mostly lingering in London's East End) hooker with a stubborn streak.

Fleeing from Julian, she hops into a closet that proves to be a time capsule (Bus Barn has crafted an elegantly understated box with two translucent sides that allow audiences to see the occupant as the time capsule rotates through space/time). As it happens, she emerges into the same hotel room occupied by Reece's wives, one in 1994 and one in 1974. Ruella, his second wife, played with great command by Murphy Larson, is the play's other star, possessing the brains to figure out this whole time-travel thing.

She gets Poopay out of her dominatrix garb, drinks a little Scotch and makes savvy deductions about the space-time continuum. Together, Poopay and Ruella are able to thwart Julian and save themselves as well as Reece's first wife, Jessica, who seems hardly worth saving (Jessica is supposed to be a garden-variety airhead, but played by Shannon Zeig she seems positively dotty).

Often described as the British Neil Simon, Ayckbourn turns out so many plays that the writing is sometimes not as careful as it might be. Occasionally the dialogue of "Communicating Doors" wobbles (if you see it, explain to me what the "I told you. Ice will freeze your brain" line is all about), and Bus Barn's cast doesn't always have the skill to sweep through the throwaway bits. Directed by Lisa Mallette, the production is slowly paced for a comedy. The physical comedy antics and goofy misunderstandings (largely provided by John Baldwin's portrayal as a hotel security man) would be enlivened if the timing were quicker. But then, as Bus Barn knows so well, time isn't always easy to master.

What: Bus Barn Stage Company presents Alan Ayckbourn's "Communicating Doors"

Where: Bus Barn Theatre, 97 Hillview Ave., Los Altos

When: Through Oct. 20. Showtimes are 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday; 3 p.m. Sunday matinee on Sept. 30; 7 p.m. on Oct. 7.

Cost: Tickets are $20 for Fridays/Saturdays; $15 for Thursdays/Sundays.

Info: Please call (650) 941-0551 or visit www.busbarn.org.