Right from the start of Taking Steps by Alan Ayckbourn you’d might as well give your imagination full rein and enjoy the ride. The play on stage at Main Street Theater’s Rice Village location is set in what may be a haunted house — formerly a brothel — with a ghost possibly on the premises.
The house has three stories all somehow combined on one level. People run up and down the stairs (the steps are also on one floor as well), in and out of rooms and beds and not everyone knows who they are dealing with at any given time.
With elements of French farce and stretched over one night and morning, the two-act Taking Steps by British playwright Ayckbourn (Absurd Person Singular, The Norman Conquests) is set in 1968 and the early ’70s in a small village outside of London.
Callina Anderson (The Revolutionists) plays Elizabeth the wife of Roland, a rich and busy man who has been renting and is thinking of buying this fixer upper. “He thinks this is what she wants and it’s not,.” Anderson says. “Actually,, Elizabeth is kind of done with this whole marriage and she doesn’t want the house so at the top of the show you see her on her way out — trying to leave everything behind.”
Meanwhile, Roland, an alcoholic and not up for husband of the year honors, is coming to the realization that the rundown Victorian may be far more trouble than it’s worth.
Other characters include Elizabeth’s brother Mark who is more interested in his fiancée Kitty than she is in him; Leslie the builder who is desperate to sell the house as he’s in deep trouble financially and then there’s Tristram, Roland’s solicitor and a somewhat unassertive and tongue-tied character who happens to be central to the plot.
Besides Anderson, the cast includes Aaron Alford, David Harlan, Philip Hays, Chaney Moor and Chris Szeto-Joe. Main Street Associate Artistic Director Andrew Ruthven directs.
Acting in a comedy like this is something of a departure for Anderson who tends to be cast in more serious plays, she says. But she got involved “One, the script is really funny. And I don’t get cast in comedies generally so I wanted the challenge of that.”
“This play is about what people are trying to get toward, to work toward, like a relationship or career. Elizabeth is a dancer and she really wants to go back. She’s given that up for Roland, to be with him, but she really wants to go back to it.”
Asked why Roland doesn’t understand his wife doesn’t want the house, Anderson says:
“I think that maybe him buying this house is more a reflection of his success and being able to prove that he’s able to purchase this home and provide for his wife than it is about her happiness.”
Anderson, a University of Houston grad, says she got interested in acting after seeing the movie To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar. “I knew I wanted to tell stories but I was really shy,” she says, but after spending money on getting her degree she decided she had enough impetus to seek acting jobs.
One of the biggest challenges in this production is to get the dialect right, Anderson says. Not just a British accent but a country British accent. Asked who should attend, she says:
“If anybody wants a laugh because there are intellectual jokes. There’s slapstick, there’s physicality. If you’re ready to laugh, you’re in the right spot.”
Performances are scheduled for May 18 through June 15 at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and Sundays at 3 p.m. at Main Street Theater – Rice Village, 2540 Times Boulevard. For more information, call 713=524-6706 or visit mainstreettheater.com. $35-$59.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
