October 16, 2008

by Zach Bennett '12

(l-r) Seniors Desi Domo, Kim Murphy and Kelsey Formost play lead roles in "Communicating Doors."

Davidson College will present the funny, touching, and suspenseful play Communicating Doors, October 22-26. The student cast will be under the direction of Steve Umberger, founder of the Charlotte Repertory Theatre and founding director of Playworks.

Performances of "Communicating Doors" are Wednesday, Oct. 22 and Thursday, Oct. 23 at 7:30 p.m., Friday, Oct. 24 and Saturday, Oct. 25 at 8:15 p.m., and Sunday, Oct. 26 at 2:00 p.m. All performances are in Duke Family Performance Hall. General admission tickets are $15 for adults and $11 for seniors. For reservations, call 704-894-2135 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays, or order online at www.davidson.edu/tickets. The play contains adult language and content and is recommended for ages 13 and up.

Umberger explained that the play unfolds on several levels. “It’s a play that looks like a farce but it’s actually a play about human potential,” he said. “But you don’t find out about it until the very end. You think it’s just a silly, funny, door-slamming farce until the last ten minutes.”

Written by Alan Ayckbourn, the play is about doors that not only connect adjoining hotel rooms, but are also vehicles for traveling in time, saving lives and changing the course of history.

When the play begins (in the future), two murders have occurred, and two wildly mismatched women—-Poopay, played by Desi Domo ’09, and Ruella, played by Kim Murphy ’09—-race back and forth in time to prevent them from taking place. In the process, they form a life-changing bond. Ayckbourn, the writer, described his work as “a time travel play with bits of Stephen King, Steven Spielberg and Alfred Hitchcock in it.”

Relationships and character development are central to the play, helping characters resolve the chaos that characterizes their lives at the beginning of the story. Ian Bond ’10 plays Reece, an embittered old man who realizes finally that he lacks love, and attempts to repent after devoting his life to himself and greed. Poopay, a dominatrix, is a lost soul who wants to belong. Ruella is a wealthy and moralistic pampered wife. Despite the differences in their personalities, the two women discover their need for each other.

Kim Murphy, who plays Ruella, cited the “marriage between comedy and drama as a significant challenge for the actors.” Desi Domo, who plays Poopay, agreed. She said the cast wants audience members to laugh, but the actors can’t let comedy obscure the truth about their characters.

Director Steve Umberger

Umberger is excited about the student cast and commented, “Everybody’s right for the role they’re playing, and being right for the role is half the battle.”

Davidson is a highly selective independent liberal arts college for 1,700 students. Since its establishment in 1837 by Presbyterians, the college has graduated 23 Rhodes Scholars and is consistently regarded as one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country.

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Posted By: Bill Giduz