Some words from our Director:
Cecilia Liu A time-travelling comedy thriller, Alan Ayckbourn's Communicating Doors was first performed in Scarborough at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in the Round and had the West End opening in London in I995. In I996 the Godot Theatre Group in Taipei put on the production in Chinese and had very successful performances.
In Communicating Doors, the central device is a portal between hotel suites that carries women who step through it either 20 years forward or 20 years back in time. This idea may seem offbeat even for a farce, but it is not surprising from a distinguished playwright who has written nearly 50 plays. The door provides the multiple choices and opporturuties displayed in human life. The communication can be interacted through the opening and closing of the doors. There are different types of doors, opening up to different directions, which signifies that communication between people does not always need to be one-directional. The plot opens up another space for the possibilities of hope and faith and charity through mutual help among human beings.
The central character Poopay Dayseer starts as a prostitute. Through her own hard-won self-respect, the compassion of Ruella and Jessica and the reverberating links between past and future, she is abruptly transformed in the final moments into an educated wife and mother. This evolution is a metaphor for what Ayckbourn believes many of neglected downtrodden could achieve. But the view of iife presented by the play is not simply optimistic at the second glance. The comic situation mixed up with the contingent danger of life and the grip over one's history proffers a setting beginning in the twenty-first century filled up with the threat of violence and war. The flashing lights outside, seemingly signs of a festival, are at last revealed to be the flares of an ongoing civil war pitting London's inner suburbs against one another. Just as the farce is bringing reassuring order to its microcosmic world, the play's final five minutes kick away all assumptions of order in the larger world. It's vintage Ayckbourn: a puzzle, laughter and an aftershock.
The English Department Senior Play cast and staff are especially talented students and they have been a pleasure to work with to stage this drama for you. I am happy to have the chance to introduce the work of a distinguished British playwright. We sincerely thank Samuel French Limited for granting us the performing rights. As you may have noticed that we have double cast, and at each production you will find a slightly different acting style. The actors hope to present to you their best interpretation of the play.
Enjoy the play!
Cecilia Liu