Photos courtesy of Long Beach Playhouse
Anton Chekov, in regards to writing a play said; “Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”
Deathtrap, running now through February 15 at the Long Beach Playhouse, could have been conceived merely as an attempt to prove Chekov wrong. At the opening of the thriller/comedy—which ran for 1,793 performances on Broadway after its opening in 1978—the audience is aware of a wall covered in various weapons: handcuffs, swords, axes, daggers and ball and chains. These weapons serve the play at hand, however, more like the weapons in a game of Clue than the gun of Chekov’s famous quote.
For all of the weapons on display to be used before the play ends, there would need to be far more than the five characters involved and a lot more bloodshed than what actually ensues. While Chekov was a master of character development and the gradual purging of internal drama, Ira Levin’s (Rosemary’s Baby, The Stepford Wives) play is far more concerned with plot twists and wordplay than empathy and character development. Deathtrap proves that the latter can make for enjoyable and engaging theater, but I still am not convinced it makes for vital or enlightening theater.
Regardless of all of that, it is a hell of a lot of fun to watch.
I’ve been hearing about Deathtrap for most of my life. I was born shortly after it closed in New York, and the buzz of countless revivals has been in my ear ever since I can remember. What was it about this show that continually has made it such a sure-fire choice for success? Why is it one of the most popular and revived plays of the last 30 some-odd years? How on earth had I gone so long without seeing or reading it?
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Given Deathtrap‘s track record, even beginning to talk about it is a bit daunting. That said, when asked about it, everyone seems to comment about the same things: the play is simultaneously witty and disturbing; it is laugh-out-loud funny and cringe-worthy creepy; it is a self-referencing, wordplay-wielding comedy and a goose-bump-inducing thriller all in one. These juxtapositions usually take place either side-by-side or at the same moment as the play unfolds and this unique quality builds a great amount of excitement and adrenaline within participating audience members, which is likely the key to its success. Regardless of how necessary I personally feel Deathtrap is as a piece of theater, it is undeniably entertaining, engaging, and exciting to watch.
The play has a nearly water-tight construction. The pacing is deliberate, the thrills are well-earned, and the comic relief always arrives at exactly the right moment. Seemingly only someone who was clueless or trying to screw things up could dull the pleasures and thrills that Deathtrap offers in spades. Luckily, the production at the Long Beach Playhouse has a pretty good idea of how this should be handled, and for the most part hits all of the notes that are necessary for the play to be a success.
As with any thriller or story where surprise makes for much of the experience, I worry about revealing too much of the plot, but as a review without any plot-related information would likely be disregarded as rubbish, I will say a little something about the narrative. Note that there is a great amount of foreshadowing already written into this play and that even if you know everything that is going to happen, there is still great pleasure in the timing and evolution of all that take place. I digress…
Set in the town of Westport, Connecticut in the fall of 1978, the story focuses mainly around the life of Sidney Bruhl. Bruhl has been the author of many successful Broadway thrillers, but lately he has been down on his luck. In fact, the last four plays Bruhl has written were flops and times are getting tight for him and his wife. At Deathtrap‘s start, Bruhl, who now teaches a course on writing thrillers, has just read a new play, Deathtrap, that was sent to him by Clifford Anderson, a student of his. He is so enamored and angered by the quality of the play that it leads him to discuss killing Anderson with his wife, at least hypothetically, and stealing the play for his own. At one point Bruhl muses, “They say that committing murder on paper siphons off the hostile impulses, and I’m sure it does. At the same time though, it opens one to the idea of committing real murder…”
The discussion leads to a phone call to the young man, inviting him over for a visit and to discuss Deathtrap in more detail. When Clifford arrives, things truly start to get creepy. Mrs. Bruhl begins to doubt the hypothetical nature of her husband’s earlier discussion and the more that Mr. Bruhl questions Clifford about his play, the more the audience doubts Mr. Bruhl’s intentions as well. This only brings us up to the beginning of the second scene of act two, but rest assured, nothing is quite as it seems. There are plot reversals and surprises, an ESP clairvoyant and a wall of weapons, a lightning storm, and a murder or two before Deathtrap comes to a close, and if any of this scenario has caught your attention, you are likely to get more than a kick out of seeing this play.
The production at the Playhouse is directed clearly and with a great sense of humor by Gregory Cohen and luckily for us, there is rarely a missed beat. You are always engaged with Deathtrap‘s characters, even when you question or are sickened by them, and the plot is always easy to follow, even if the reality presented seems far fetched or even ridiculous at times.
The set (Andrew Vonderschmitt) and costumes (Donna Fritsche) evoke the era without making a big joke of it and the play fits very comfortably on the Playhouse’s stage. The cast is solid, though most are more believable in their roles after some of the reversals are exposed than they are before we learn their secrets, a fact that for me at least, felt a little unfortunate.
Gene Godwin is convincing in his portrayal of Sidney Bruhl, but I found him more believable in the second act than I did in the first. Johnny Martin on the other hand, provides an energetic and emotionally complex portrayal of Clifford, keeping him the most believable character in the play. Harriet Whitmyer is wonderful as Helga Ten Dorp, a foreign clairvoyant who picks up on the bad vibes at the Bruhl household, with a perfect accent and timing that is never off its mark.
My only bone to pick with the casting of Deathtrap was that of Allison McGuire as Mrs. Bruhl, who seems a little too sweet and one dimensional as the helpless and submissive wife of Mr. Bruhl. This is not totally Miss McGuire’s fault, as her part is a bit underwritten; I found myself questioning her more often than accepting her. It should be noted, however, that no one in Deathtrap detracts from the enjoyment of the whole and the show makes its points and hits its notes the way that one would hope it would.
One day later, I am still left questioning whether this play is a vital work of theater or merely a wonderfully constructed entertainment. Its pleasures are multiple; it is witty, fast paced, nearly impossible to not enjoy, and though I left the theater smiling, I couldn’t shake the feeling of being haunted by that Chekov quote. While I love being entertained as much as anybody, I go to the theater in hopes of feeling, even if just for a moment or two, some sort of empathetic enlightenment or small bit of insight into the human experience. That Deathtrap is one of the longest running and most successful plays in Broadways history seems to prove that not everybody feels the same way I do.
See Deathtrap, be shocked by its plot twits and laugh at its keen wit. Then judge its long-running theatrical merit for yourself.
Deathtrap runs through Fenruary 15 on the Mainstage Theater at the Long Beach Playhouse. Tickets can be purchased online here.
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