FARMINGTON — Theatre UMF will present Lee Blessing’s “Two Rooms,” named Best Play of the Year by Time magazine in 1988, as its spring 2010 production.

The award-winning drama will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, March 11-13; and at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 14, in Alumni Theater on the University of Maine at Farmington campus.

Set in the turbulent 1980s, Blessing’s hostage drama tells the story of a couple’s persistent love against a backdrop of perilous global events. The play opens with Michael Wells, a history professor at American University in Beirut, Lebanon, who has been held in captivity in a single room for three years.

In an attempt to feel closer to her husband, his wife, Lainie, has created her own solitary space. She has removed the shades and furniture from her husband’s study and uses this room to talk to him as she tries to imagine what he must be going through.

 As the drama unfolds, Lainie becomes the center of a tug of war between the government and the press, both insistent that their own strategies will succeed in bringing Wells home. Throughout it all, she clings to the solitary room where she still feels closest to her husband.

This drama is filled with beautiful monologues and scenes between two people a world apart who can still feel each other’s presence.

This presentation’s content is of an adult nature and suitable for mature audiences only.

 Directed by Jayne Decker, UMF instructor and director of the Sandy River Players, Blessing’s play is both a potent political drama and a story about love and hope. “I wanted to challenge students with the kind of production that would help them grow as actors,” said Decker.

Blessing has been a major force in post-1960s American theater. His plays are noted for revealing the underlying truths that connect people regardless of ethnicity, gender or politics. His work has received The American Theater Critics Circle Award, the L.A. Drama Critics Award and The Great American Play Award. Three of his plays have been cited by Time magazine’s list of the year’s Ten Best.

 Tickets for the performance are $6 for adults, $5 for students and $4 for seniors. Tickets will be available at the time of the performance and may be reserved by calling 778-7465.

University of Maine at Farmington students Adam Randall and Brittney Blais are featured in the roles of Michael and Lainie Wells in Theatre UMF’s production of Lee Blessing’s “Two Rooms.”

Copy the Story Link