| OCR Text |
Show 'Death Trap' shows you how to succeed without really dying - - .,. f i i ; f":" " ' ' vy , L ' - . 1 ... f -; v - - - ' I ' . p ' . i ' - ! 5 - il - l 1 - I . . .... J l iiwil .1 I ll iij.ii III urn I il u I I ii'-i iiumiim X m5.".- " : - - . . ' it- ' . A -vV- . . ... i .. r..k.- i .r , - ., -,i , , A.,n n-rtfaMiimra-nii-i n 1 1 i iliinrtiirfiiriiliiiiriiiiiiriiriiiiilrMiiwiiiriiiiriii nniiirntiimimnrwtlin mn i r -Tnn n timi 11 (Left) Dan Rogers as scheming playwright, reacts with shock to a new development in his "Death Trap."( Actually the shocks are deliverd .0 the audience.) (Above) Dan Balestrero (Clifford) ponders his next move in the cat-and-mouse game presented by Park City Performances. by Rick Brough The 1983-84 season of Park City Performances has started star-ted with a bang plus a shriek and some death rattles. "Death Trap," now being performed at the Egyptian Theatre, is Ira Levin's crackling-good yarn, and Director Craig Clyde and his cast have given it a compelling com-pelling interpretation. Sidney Bruhl (Dan Rogers) is a middle-aged dramatist of murder plays who is suffering a long dry spell. To add insult to creative impotence, he now receives in the mail a superb first-time effort written by a student who was in his college play-writing course. He tells wife Myra (Vicky Balestrero) he is tempted to kill the young writer, and claim the new play for his own. With that in mind, Myra becomes apprehensive when Sidney does invite young Clifford Anderson (Dan Balestrero) to his isolated country home. It would be a shame to tell what Sidney's next move is. Suffice it to say that his country coun-try colonial living room will see its share of bloodshed. And several items from Sidney's Sid-ney's wall collection of antique an-tique weapons will be brought into play. Amid the reversals and counter-reversals, we can reveal that "Death Trap" has a receding box-within-box look. As Sidney and Clifford confront each other, both reflect that their situation would make a good mystery play. (Clifford's play is, in fact, called "Death Trap.") And even-., tually each man tries to act out his own murder scenario with the other as star victim. To put the play across, Clyde and his two lead actors have maintained a good pace and a nice handling of emotional temperatures. Dan Rogers carries the play, mainly because he can suggest that all of Sidney's varying moods are part of the same character. Rogers is at various times disgruntled, disgrun-tled, vulnerable, petulantly demanding, cordial and sardonic. sar-donic. Aided by director Clyde, he is also efficient in passages that could get a little lit-tle long in the tooth where he has to scuttle around rearranging evidence or setting set-ting the scene. Best of all, he has consistent con-sistent character at the foundation. Rogers looks like someone who's crafted himself him-self into a literate, lacerating personality, but isn't one at heart. (One quibble: quib-ble: this vulnerable, plebian Sidney doesn't have the comic edge that would make his character more enjoyable. en-joyable. Still Rogers makes him a murderous, likable character.) Dan Balestrero as Clifford also doesn't have a venomous edge. He could be a Jekyll and Hyde, a dark personality behind the boyishness. But Balestrero comes up with something that is equally valid. He's a genial, good-natured type who turns nasty because, gee, you have to get on in this world. He's sinister because guile seems to grow out of guileless ambitions. Balestrero also gives the best comic twists, like when he realizes his danger in Act One, or pulls some of the reversals in Act Two. Director Clyde translates the script's suspense intact to the stage. Even though I had seen the movie, I found myself feeling tense as the plot thickened. His violence explodes with realistic spontaneity, spon-taneity, and with glorious, dastardly relish, he brings much of it down front. He shoves it at the front row, complete with blood and anguished gurgles from the victims. 1 . Clyde is also lighting designer, with Ann Kulbeckas, and gives the old Egyptian one of the best lighting jobs it's seen. At the thunderstorm climax, the stage flickers with lightning flashes and shadows of trees. The only technical gaffe occurs oc-curs when the storm's sound effects are turned off abruptly, abrup-tly, like a water tap. (Actually, (Ac-tually, the biggest goof happened hap-pened outside of the play. At intermission, the usual flickering-light signal telling tell-ing us to return to our seats was not given in the Egyptian lobby. This left many of us to scurry in a few minutes late on Act Two like tardy students.) In the general acting department there were only a few line fumbles. The cast might talk with more deliberation. Some of the early lines in Levin's literate, jocular dialogue come out garbled. And in Act Two, the actors have a slight, regrettable tendency to show passion by shouting. The good supporting performances per-formances are led by Robin Riley, as Helga Ten Dorp, the unpredictable psychic. (You can never tell when she'll turn from dreamy visions to promotions about her next appearance on Merv Griffin!) Riley could probably push the comic quirkiness even further, but she gets the laughs. And, especially in Act One, she moves as if her arms and long legs are antennae seeking out psychic vibrations. Vicky Balestrero helps a great deal to create tension in the scene. After all, Myra is the audience's represent tative, wondering like is when murder is going to be done. But at the very beginning begin-ning of the play, as the supportive sup-portive wife, she's stiff. She's doesn't seem to be comfortable moving around the set or relating to husband Sidney. Richard Scott doesn't find the space to do anything special with the short role of the family's lawyer, Porter Milgrim. He textures the part with gestures that suggest a stuffy, older character. Michael Kinney has created a set that is pleasing, livable, and without any space that isn't used eventually. Assistant Director Ann Sanderson stuffed stuf-fed it with good-looking furniture, fur-niture, a collection of weapons that stirs the imagination, and theatrical C bric-a-brac. (One is identifiable iden-tifiable from the Egyptian ! ) "Death Trap" has some faults, but these are not gaping flaws. Rather, they are rough spots in a pleasing professional job. Clyde has brought a nice theatrical flair to his murder play about murdering for a play. It may be a death trap for the characters, but for us, it's a rousing package of fictional fic-tional chills to offset the real winter chills. The play continues Nov. 17-18. Admission is $5.50 general, and $4.50 for members mem-bers of Park City Performances. |
