BWW Reviews: Street Theatre Company Misfires With Anachronistic THE DESPERATE HOURS

Despite the taut direction of Ryan Williams, particularly sinister underscoring by Rollie Mains and a compelling, bravura performance by Luke Hatmaker as the ringleader of a group of prison escapees, Street Theatre Company's The Desperate Hours is a rare misfire from the company and the creative team charged with bringing it to the stage.

Named the best play on Broadway in 1954, The Desperate Hours was probably more entertaining in those simpler times, but today it comes across as a tedious, overly sentimental and slow-moving drama that borders on camp in spite of efforts to update the vehicle with shiny new pop culture references. In STC's production, Williams has updated the play's action from the mid-20^th century to 1985 (we know that's the setting thanks to a program note and all the music that comes from the radio and played prior to curtain), recrafting much of the language to make the story more relevant. Short of a complete rewriting of the script (which, we doubt playwright Joseph Hayes' heirs would cotton to), however, a cursory updating of those pop culture references just doesn't cut it.

Make no mistake about it, The Desperate Hours is a product of its own times and anachronisms abound throughout. Had the play been presented as a period piece (as last season's STC production of The Bad Seed-which also featured a live score composed and performed by Mains-was so creatively mounted), the result certainly would have been more satisfying and more entertaining. While Act One of the updated version produced some chills and crafted truly suspenseful moments as the plot progressed, Act Two was bogged down, the pace halted by the convoluted developments and interactions among the characters that fairly reek of melodramatic potboilers.

Of course, that is exactly what The Desperate Hours is-a melodramatic potboiler-and its characters are dramatic archetypes of a much earlier time. They are neither believable nor accessible in the early 21^st century; instead, they seem plucked directly from a lackluster, noirish film and dropped right in the  middle of a bad movie-of-the-week, circa 1985. Presenting the dated play as a period piece would have made what's actually in the script more palatable and compelling.

Set in small town Indiana, The Desperate Hours focuses on the Hilliard family (dad Daniel, mom Eleanor, daughter Cindy and son Ralphie) whose lives are upended when they are taken hostage in their home by a trio of prison escapees (brothers Glenn and Hank Griffin and Samuel Robish), bent on escape to more welcoming climes (if only town pump Helen Laskey shows up with a bag full of dough) and revenge. It seems Glenn Griffin has been nursing a grudge against local lawman Jesse Bard ever since he broke the convict's jaw at the end of a shoot-out some three years earlier.

As counterpoint to the unfolding hostage drama at the Hilliards' bucolic middle-class split-level, we are treated to tiresome scenes at the neighborhood constabulary, where the local cops and the state highway patrol regularly hold pissing contests to prove who's really packing the most heat, and where the arrival of a female, African-American FBI agent (there's a line about reporting her to J. Edgar Hoover, who died in 1972) upsets the old boys' applecart with an infusion of estrogen-fueled snottiness.

While scenes in the Hilliard home build up suspense, the unease created quickly deflates when the focus changes to police HQ, where no one seems to be doing much work. Rather, they sit around talking, providing exposition and backstory for what's happening right under their unsuspecting noses. In fact, the action seems plausible only if you view it from the perspective of the 1950s, yet it seems completely laughable today.

Hayes' plot is fairly predictable (but be prepared to jump out of your seat at the sound of gunfire) and the script's updating only seems confusing. Perhaps a drinking game is in order: Every time a character mutters a phrase best-suited to the '50s, or groaningly anachronistic, you down a shot of your favorite hooch. Otherwise, you'll find yourself rooting for the bad guys in hopes they'll mow down the whole Hilliard clan in a hail of gunfire. On the upside, you'll be in a swell mood by curtain.

In spite of all the problems inherent in the script, Williams does a good job of blocking the action and ensuring that all his actors are all on the same yellowed and dog-eared page. Hatmaker, a recent graduate of Belmont University, is a fine actor who shows much promise-his take on Glenn Griffin is sharply focused. With total commitment, Hatmaker delivers a performance that is skin-crawlingly unnerving and he never wavers from the task at hand. As he terrorizes the fictional family-who, we are told, are based on real people who endured such an incident in 1952 (although their account is far different from the one told here)-he is never, for even a second, not in the character of the dastardly criminal.

David Chattam, as the not-so-heroic father, is hamstrung by the parameters created by the playwright for his character. As a result, Chattam seems far too restrained and unable to break free from scriptbound conventions to deliver a performance equal to his talent and abilities.

John Mauldin (as Robish) and Sean Hills (as Hank Griffin) fare pretty well in their performances, with Mauldin playing the brutish, lumbering Robish with relish (watch him eat Fritos out of mom Eleanor's hair and you'll realize he may have been locked away for far too long), while Hills' Hank obviously wrestles with total dependence on his brother and an urgency to be his own man (although prison obviously hasn't tainted his gentlemanly ways toward the fairer sex).

Beth Henderson is Eleanor (whose wan expression alone should be reason enough for her to be the gang's first victim), Quinn Cooke is Cynthia aka Cindy (everybody run: the homecoming queen's got a bad attitude), and Isaiah Frank is young Ralphie (with nary a Red Ryder bb gun to be found). For myriad reasons, they are far less likable than the escaped cons, and the gang of three should be commended for not shooting them at first sight. It can't have been easy and it offers proof than even outlaws, however fictional, must have some sort of code of honor that prevents them from killing the boring, whiny and charm-free.

As the "law," Phil Brady (one of Nashville's most versatile and hardest working actors) is completely wasted as Deputy Tom Winston, made to yawn a lot to indicate his lack of sleep due to hard work and sent to the file room to do busy work while a trio of escaped convicts wreak havoc on the town. Kevin Shell is unbelievable as the taciturn deputy Jessie Bard (the one with the crackerjack right hook) who broke Glenn Griffin's jaw, and Matt Bettinson plays an Indiana state trooper, with Fiona [Soul] as the FBI agent.

Mains' musical score is effective and performed with melodramatic flourish by Mains, Nick Palmer and John Murphy. Steven Steele's lighting design is artfully done to highlight the play's action and to focus audience attention, while director Williams' set design faithfully depicts a middle class home and his playbill design is pretty nifty.

• The Desperate Hours. By Joseph Hayes. Directed by Ryan Williams. Presented by Street Theatre Company, 1933 Elm Hill Pike, Nashville. Through October 28. For details, go to www.streettheatrecompany.org.

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