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Even after 45 years, Ira Levin’s Deathtrap still deserves its reputation as a venerable stage thriller because it delivers on its promise of thrills, surprises and laughs.
Sidney Bruhl, the murderously devious playwright in Levin’s thriller, says a successful whodunnit has “a juicy murder in act one, unexpected developments in act two, and offers sound construction, crackling good dialogue, and laughs in all the right places.” With this observation, sly old Levin is describing his own play which has at least one murder, several surprises most people won’t see coming, some delightfully bitchy dialogue, and a hilarious, scene-stealing psychic character.
All the ingredients are there, but it takes a master craftsman like director Mark Bellamy to bake them into the delicious comic souffle Stage West is serving until Nov. 10. He keeps the action moving at a brisk pace, still making certain the laughs and scares have maximum effect.
Some 18 years before we meet Sidney (Ashley Wright) and his wife Myra (Natascha Girgis) in the study of their rural Connecticut cottage in 1978, he had an enormous Broadway hit called The Murder Game. Since then, he has penned a string of critical and box-office duds. Now in his 50s, Sidney is suffering both writer’s block and a midlife crisis, which makes him a desperately dangerous man.
Things intensify when Sidney receives a play from Clifford Anderson (Justin Stadnyk), a student in his summer playwrighting course. Sidney is aware the play, which Clifford calls Deathtrap, is every bit as commercial as The Murder Game, and it’s a murderous game Sidney hatches to get his hands on it. That’s all of the plot one can reveal without spoiling the serpentine shenanigans that unfold before the final curtain.
Bellamy has assembled a top cast for Stage West’s Deathtrap beginning with Wright who seldom leaves the stage, and is in full verbal and physical throttle the entire time, because he is meant to take control of every situation. There is an urgency about everything Sidney does, and Wright works tirelessly to keep up the energy this show needs.
The first scene of the play is pure exposition, and it feels overly long and overwritten, but Girgis and Wright keep it lively with his caustic humour, and her nervous apprehension. Poor Myra is not certain Sidney is joking when he says he’d murder to get his hands on Clifford’s play, especially when he invites the young man over to discuss his work that same night. Girgis’s relentless tension is palpable and contagious.
When Elinor Holt arrives as the wildly frenetic psychic medium, Helga ten Dorp, it’s pure slapstick fun, and it’s the comic relief the scene needs because things turn much darker once Clifford arrives to discuss his play.
Initially, Stadnky makes Clifford a bit of a wimp, but Stadnyk’s transformation is what makes one of Deathtrap’s major twists so effective. The final character is Sidney’s attorney Porter Milgrim. Robert Klein makes him seem pretty innocuous, but, he’s as duplicitous as every other character in this play.
Anton deGroot’s set is a marvel as are Kris Mish’s lighting designs, and Zach Coulter’s sound designs. Deathtrap demands this level of technical excellence to help it score its suspense and thrills.
Because it is so slick and calculated, Stage West’s Deathtrap is great nasty fun.