'Deathtrap' discharges twisted humor

By Farrah Madanay     4/19/12 7:00pm

While characters are bludgeoned, shot and stabbed on stage, audiences are hit over the head with plot repetition of "Deathtrap." Presented by the Will Rice College Players, Ira Levin's "Deathtrap" is the "Inception" of theater.

Both a thriller and a parody of one simultaneously, "Deathtrap" is a play within a play. Though not without twists, actors are constantly stating and restating, inventing and reinventing what is happening on stage.

 All the action of "Deathtrap" takes place in the study of protagonist Sydney Bruhl's home in Westport, Conn., in 1978. The first act features Bruhl, a washed-out playwright, Bruhl (Will Rice senior Geoffrey Holmes) who conspires with a young, aspiring playwright to kill Bruhl's wife, Myra.

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The scheme involves Bruhl pretending to kill the young playwright, Clifford Anderson (Duncan College senior Nicolas Forero), and then Anderson coming back from the grave to kill Bruh;.

Myra (Will Rice junior Alicia Jones), helpless and flustered, dies of a heart attack after seeing her husband ostensibly bludgeoned to death with a log, which Clifford later reveals is a piece of styrofoam.

Two weeks later, Anderson has decided to write a play based on Bruhl's and his successful scheme to kill Myra. Bruhl, fearing the play will incriminate them both, is in ardent disagreement.

Bruhl attempts to kill Anderson, but Anderson is a step ahead of Bruhl and gains the upper hand. Anderson tries to escape, but not before Bruhl finds his target with a quarrel from his crossbow. In the end, Anderson revives himself just long enough to reciprocate with a fatal stab at Bruhl before both die in the study.

The acts are told, retold, foretold and played during various parts of the show. Jealousy and greed take center stage as characters vie to take credit for an untouchable and innovative script.

Audience members laugh at the comedic elements but also simultaneously feel mocked by those on stage. The characters constantly reveal how they have duped the audience and how they will dupe them ?again later.

A Will Rice Players veteran, Holmes convincingly plays the condescending, self-centered has-been. His eyerolls, over-the-top mimicries and facial expressions add the appropriate hint of comedy to the rather twisted storyline.   

Though at times irritating, he is also strangely charming, particularly with his puns and when compared to his less funny castmates.

Thank goodness Myra does not live beyond the first act. Jones overacts at times and at others fails to show any emotion - either love or hate - ?toward Holmes.

She does little to move the play along, and even her little rant about money issues feels more contrived than heartfelt.

Forero's character is subdued but likable. He conveys both sincerity and naivete in deference toward the "master playwright," Bruhl. Everything about his character is serious and seems so innocent.

Even when he is pointing a gun at Sydney's head, Forero embodies the awkward persona of a man who does not know what to do now that he has the upper hand. This becomes apropos when he decides not to kill Sydney but rather to escape from the house.

Though the thriller is far from a comedy, supporting character psychic Helga ten Dorp (Will Rice senior Rosalie Berg) adds comedic breaks to the sinister plot. Ten Dorp, a Dutch woman who claims to have the God-given gift of extrasensory perception, is sometimes right, sometimes wrong, and always ridiculous in her accounts of ?the future.

Berg adopts a rudimentary accent by skipping over articles and unnecessarily repeating words. Though Berg does not bring any creative nuances to her portrayal of the archetypal psychic character, her airhead acting is nonetheless funny.

Will Rice sophomore Gregory Perin rounds off the five-person cast. He plays Bruhl's attorney, Porter Milgrim, and is as dull as Sydney describes him. His character is more of a plot element than a well-rounded character. The script does not help his portrayal; he ends up just coming across as bored. His interactions with Bruhl and ten Dorp are distanced and uninspired - though he is ?an attorney.

Chekhov's guns (the narrative trope of foreshadowing) literally hang everywhere on the set's walls. The set is simple, yet - for the most part - well thought-out. The painted brick fireplace mantel is the weakest element of the set; it looks like the designers quit caring after hanging all of the faux weaponry on ?the walls.

Though it is dubious how many men would have their study painted with baby blue walls, the color choice popped under the floodlights, highlighting the most important props of the script: the guns, mace, axe, crossbow and handcuffs.

Tech directors Will Rice senior Daniel Podder and Will Rice junior James Morgensen take a minimalist approach to lighting and sound. They use two overhead floodlights for main lighting. Though the lamplights on stage are of no consequence in comparison to the overhead lighting, the lamps lend just the right variance to complement plot shifts.

The complete darkness for minutes between scenes was on the verge of being too long but effectively demarcated the breaks in the acts.

The audience can hear every word from the actors, even when the sounds of the storm roll in. Podder and Morgensen do not innovate on lighting and sound, but their choices also do not overwhelm and distract ?the audience.

Overall, the Players' rendition of "Deathtrap" was cautious and simple. Nothing about the play was extraordinary, but nothing was terrible. Though only two of the five cast members ended the play alive, the play itself was certainly not dead on arrival.

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