Mind Games

LAST SATURDAY'S production of Deathtrap destroyed a Lowell House dining hall chair. In the middle of the first act, fading playwright Sidney Bruhl strangles a young admirer who has written a better play than Bruhl ever could. Dramatic realism aside, his attack was so savage that the chair smashed to the floor as the two struggled around the stage.

It's already hard enough to find a place to eat in Lowell House that they can't afford to break chairs at each performance, but even so the actors handled the mishap with ease. A successful ad lib can lighten a play but a bad one can murder it, and there is already plenty of murder in Ira Levin's comic thriller. So the actors stayed cool, and the tightly constructed, well paced production didn't founder.

In a good murder mystery the audience should never quite know who murdered whom. But Deathtrap's Russian doll of a plot, who did the killing is sickeningly obvious: what isn't so clear is whom they have murdered. Bruhl, one killer, is not only tormented by his failure of the last few years; he is also experiencing a sort of mid-life self-awareness. Upon receiving the young Clifford Anderson's play in the mail. Bruhl laments his writer's block and starts to assess his chances of bringing his art to life by being able to do Anderson in.

Anderson, the seemingly unsuspecting intended victim, makes the mistake of not telling anyone he is visiting Bruhl. And he brings with him the only other copy of the play which so tempts the older man--whose last four plays have flopped, forcing him to live off his wife's dwindling inheritance.

Roger Gould is unabashedly cynical about his lack of success at the typewriter and willingness to kill for what he wants. He glibly throws off lines as convoluted as the plot, to the delight of the audience and to the ill health of his wife who cringes when he offers to meet Anderson at the train station and "run you over." When forced to plot a second murder to cover up his first. Bruhl's terror is real as he starts down the path so many have found; that evil only leads to further evil.

Jeff Rossman plays the victim Anderson well, and does not reveal his deeper motives, which contributes to the play's most unexpected plot reversals.

THOSE PLOT REVERSALS and inviting French doors on stage right make the play a legitimate thriller; it is very witty as well. Bruhl's snide remarks about producers who ignore his plays and his collaborators in crime keep the play moving. The funniest moments of the night come with visits from the Bruhl's eccentric neighbor who proudly announces on each entrance. "I am Helge Ten Dorp, I am psychic."

Using her powers. Ten Dorp (Jodie Barrett) predicts the play's murders, but her warnings are ignored because she has a slightly imperfect gift. (She predicts the arrival of Anderson's typewriter as a small Black man named Smith Corolla.) Barrett's broad campish delivery relieves the tension of some of the murders. Delivering the play's best exit line, she exclaims. "Ach, my daughter, she is pregnant, after all those years of trying she has finally made me a grandmother. I must go tell her."

Even though the rest of the cast isn't quite up to the level of the three most important characters, they don't interfere much. Bruhl's wife Myra (Anne Higgins) is a factor only in the first act: Myra is suitably awkward when Anderson arrives and she ridiculously fears that her husband may actually do him in for the chance at another hit and a trip to the Riviera. And Bruhl's lawyer Porte Migrim (Paolo Carozza) comes by occasionally to act pseudo-everything like the prototypical Westport, Conn. lawyers.

The set is wood paneled and decorated with antique weapons, a fair number of which get used in the two and a half hours of mayhem. As Bruhl asks early on. "What's the point of owning a mace if you don't use it?" The mace and most of the swords, axes, knives and guns would make any collector proud, but one large cardboard-looking saber in the middle of the back wall stands out.

The set's small cozy feel is an asset; all the action takes place in the one room. Bruhl's study, and the actors move well on the dining hall stage. Lowell House's choice of Deathtrap was a good one. The local production surpasses the Hollywood version which had trouble trying to enlarge the scope of the action. The only slight drawback is that because dead people tend to lie on the floor, people sitting in the back sometimes have trouble seeing what they are doing.

CORPSES DO PLAY an important part in the play since there are five murders in the two acts. The two which need to look the most authentic are chilling. When the envious Bruhl garrotes Anderson, the murder--which did in the chair--is agonizingly long. The strangling is exhausting for both involved and Rossman's face turns hideously red in his futile struggle. By prolonging their theatrical duel and a later bludgeoning, director Beth Schachter reminds the audience that death really isn't that funny and murder is downright terrifying to witness or commit.

That kind of thoughtfulness pervades the play. After the sensational first act, the script lags a bit in the second but the slow parts are played lightly and even alluded to to keep the show moving along. A play with only five characters and five murders has a problem surviving anything but a bloody depressing finale. Levin provides an out; it is played well, adding a twist to make sure the audience leaves laughing and able to speculate on what happens next. That mixture of laughter and uncertainty make Deathtrap audiences easy prey.