House&Garden

[September 5th, 2007] [COMEDIC SPRINTING] In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead , Tom Stoppard wrote, “Look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else.” Prolific English playwright Alan Ayckbourn took that idea and ran with it to craft this pair of marital comedies, written to be performed in connected theaters by the same cast. Set in the house and garden of an English estate (hence the names), the plays make sense individually, but their overlapping plots and characters are stronger together—and make for a challenging production. You can see either show—or both on different nights—but the full House &Garden experience is a long Sunday: House at 2 pm, Garden at 7:30.

Every exit an actor makes in either play is an entrance in the other, and involves hoofing it between sets, through six doorways and over five flights of stairs—sometimes in the dark. Since I got hopelessly lost the last time I was backstage at Artists Rep’s Alder Street compound, I had to give it a try.

I met up on the House set with Tyler Caffall—who plays Jake, a 17-year-old reporter, and racks up more miles in transit than anyone else—and stage manager Stephanie Mulligan, who brought a stopwatch. Our first trip between the stages was easy enough: We made it in 77 seconds, despite having to sneak past construction workers on the second floor.

Then Mulligan turned out the lights. Caffall took off at a trot, but I could barely make out the glow-tape leading toward the exit, and stumbled. Luckily for me, I wasn’t carrying any props, some of which—mostly glassware and cutlery—had to be doubled (one for each set) to prevent injury. And Caffall’s crossings aren’t the script’s trickiest: “There’s one scene where Todd [Van Voris] was supposed to be in two places at once,” Mulligan says. “We had to change that one.”

Despite the logistical challenges, Caffall insists Ayckbourn is concerned with more than gimmickry. “He’s genuinely interested in the backstage space, and the question of what takes place there,” he says. “He’s not trying to make the actors look stupid.”

That’s good, because the cast list reads like a roll call of Portland’s top talent, including Tim True, Maureen Porter, Todd Van Voris, Michael O’Connell and Marjorie Tatum, to name a few. Fortunately for them, the play has more going for it than the obvious challenges. House&Garden is a very witty, perceptive comedy about the trials of married life that, despite a fair amount of British bawdiness and low physical comedy, is full of broken trust, ennui and careless infidelity. It’s an excellently crafted tragicomedy. And that, more than the bells and whistles of the twin-stage concept, is why you should check out this show.