Masque’s ‘Taking Steps’ innovative production

University of Maine student artists will give theater audiences a close look at the technical innovation of playwright Alan Ayckbourn during the run of “Taking Steps,” set for April 18-22 at Hauck Auditorium.

The all-student, Maine Masque production can be seen at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, April 18-21, and at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, April 21-22.

Ayckbourn once described “Taking Steps” as “an attic, a lounge, a wife in a quandary and a fiancee in a cupboard, a devious builder, a nervous solicitor, a ponderous personnel officer and a drunken bucket manufacturer all embroiled in a tale of love, confusion and freedom.”

A cast of six will bring to life this tale of miscommunication and misinterpreted ideas, said director Elaine DiFalco Daugherty.

“Each character has ineffectual escapes from the confining lives they have made based on other people who, in reality, are not willing to go on the same journey with them,” added Daugherty, a first-year graduate student from Brockton, Mass., and a 1997 UM graduate in theater. “This is an entertaining comedy that also is intriguing and intellectually stimulating.”

“Taking Steps” is set in present-day England, in a rundown Victorian manor. Scenes take place on three floors of a house, with rooms connected by painted “steps” on a one-level stage. Daugherty adds her own technical innovation by seating the audience on either side of the stage to enhance the intimacy and exaggerate the confining aspects of the set.

Cast members are Mary McIntosh of Washburn, Amanda Eaton of Dexter, Brad Fillion of Gorham, N.H., Andy Hicks of Westford, Mass., Joe Kilch of Castine, and Trevor Bean of Cumberland.

Tickets are $8 and available by calling the Maine Center for the Arts box office at 581-1755.