BWW Reviews: ACT 1's Dismal DEATHTRAP

Here's some perhaps unsolicited advice: If you are staging a play in which the two leading male characters are carrying on a secret love affair, they should at least be able to act as if they are attracted to each other when the cat, as it were, is let out of the bag. This is 2015 - two men (or two women, for that matter) can get married nowadays - and it's offensive if two actors can't at least act like they might have the hots for each other. We don't need to see prolonged frottage or simulated fellatio to get the idea: the suggestion of genuine attraction between two characters would be enough to win over the most discerning audience. Even theater critics can be easily fooled.

And that, gentle readers, is just the first problem with ACT 1's season-opening production of Ira Levin's Deathtrap, a sturdy, if perhaps shopworn, theatrical thriller now onstage through October 17 at Darkhorse Theater. Directed and produced by Susan Cole, Deathtrap features a notable cast of experienced local actors who seem to be trapped in a plodding, uninteresting production of a play that's well past its projected shelf life. There's a lack of polish (whether among the actors' performances or on the surface of set pieces) and a pervasive sense of not knowing the time, place and environs in which Deathtrap takes place that is disconcerting and off-putting.

For a thriller to engage and enthrall its audience, it is essential that it have good pacing. ACT 1's Deathtrap moves glacially through its two-and-one-half hours of hoary theatricality with a complete and utter absence of charm and intrigue (although, to give credit, the scene in which a presumed dead character comes "back to life," so to speak, did make me jump - and I knew it was coming! - so kudos for that), leaving one to wonder how they'll ever recover that time in their lives. Certainly, whenever a character takes down a crossbow from the wall (in order to commit murder, however fictional) and you wonder just how much he would charge you to direct the weapon toward your very own Grinch-sized heart...well, something's very wrong.

There's absolutely no chemistry between the characters of Sidney Bruhl (played with utter diffidence by Joel Diggs, whose previous onstage assignments have been justifiably and critically lauded) and Clifford Anderson (Nashville stage newcomer Dante Greco, who looks, sounds and acts just the way you would imagine the love child of singer Josh Groban and the late comedian/actor Andy Kaufman to). Unfortunately, neither is there chemistry between Sidney and his wife, Myra (played by an otherwise lovely Christi Dortch, who here seems to be channeling the late, great Shirley Booth from TV's favorite sitcom about household domestics, Hazel, with her crouching shoulders, scampering movement and downcast eyes).

Judy Jackson fares better as the Dutch psychic who lives next door, lending a sense of whimsy and lightness to the proceedings, despite having to wear a turban of gigantic proportions to suggest she's the mascot for the local high school's lacrosse team. And the usually dependable Michael Welch disappoints as the well-meaning and supposedly well-heeled Connecticut lawyer Porter Milgrim (who wears a tie covered with depictions of rubber duckies to a board meeting at the Old Eli Club in New Haven - Eli, as in Eli Yale...he really should be wearing, at the very least, a rep-striped tie in Yale Blue).

Perhaps Deathtrap, the play, hasn't aged well - at least that would be the argument some would put forward - but I don't think that's the case with Levin's script. You can add imagination and creativity to the piece without detracting from the script as it is written or changing the story in any way. Rather, you can illuminate it, making the show far more palatable for audiences in order for them to thoroughly be entertained by the play. There is humor to be found in the piece (Jackson pretty much steals the show with her portrayal of psychic Helga Ten Dorp) and while the "thrilling" aspect of the play might seem quaint to some, there's still enough written on the page to convey to people why productions of Deathtrap continue to be mounted.

But, quite frankly, being detail-oriented is an essential part of any successful theater production - and in this one, in particular, it seems like many details have fallen to the wayside, in the same way that dropped lines littered the stage during the performance reviewed.

• Deathtrap. By Ira Levin. Directed and produced by Susan Cole. Presented by ACT 1 at the Darkhorse Theatre, Nashville. Through October 17. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes (with one 15-minute intermission).

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