You’ll see more characters die (or at least pretend to, in more ways than one) on the By the Sea Productions stage than you ever have before when you pay a visit to Deathtrap, the comedy-thriller now playing in Morro Bay through May 18.
And that’s a good thing—for the audience, and I suspect for the actors as well, who embrace their roles with gusto and who delight in the display of murderous weapons making up the back wall of the stage. You know just from that impressive line-up of guns, knives, battle axes, and chains that at least one character will meet his or her maker during the show.
If you haven’t seen a production of this Broadway classic, or the 1982 movie of the same name, you are in for the thrill of trying to guess what happens next. And if you are already acquainted with Deathtrap, it’s still a delight to see its twists and turns presented on a local stage.
It takes many hands to put together the set and props required for a convincing adaptation of Ira Levin’s play, and there are more crew members than cast members listed in the program (all deserving of applause): Rayna Ortiz, Samvel Gottlieb, Bryan Easton, Jim Crawford, Russ Snow, Darrell Greene, Greg Peters, Larry Bolef, Janice Peters, and Rhonda Crowfoot.
The cast is also credited with helping out behind the scenes, and I’m sure Cambria’s Village Wizard Rick Bruce as Sidney Bruhl, the character who sets the play’s action in motion, led the pack. After all, he’s the one who would already know how to make trick handcuffs work, how to manipulate and misdirect an audience with skillful magician’s hands, and how to fire a crossbow (yes, there’s a reason that antique weapon has pride of place on that ominous back wall).
Kira Dobson, as Sidney’s wife Myra, is a good onstage match for Bruce, meeting him beat for beat—and eye to eye—as the plot develops. And the plot is the star of this show, so if you don’t know it, no spoilers here.
Suffice it to say that director Sheridan Cole keeps the remaining cast members moving through their paces without hesitation: Jonah Duhe (exhibiting great comic timing), Nicolette Tempesta (as an appropriately wacky psychic), and Don Gaede (in a thankless role that in the end isn’t so thankless after all) are fearless in roles that require some courage to execute (no pun intended).
The show is set in the era of typewriters and rotary dial phones, which for older audiences may prove nostalgic (while satisfying the curiosity of some younger audience members). But with murder on its mind, the play kicks it up a notch for every theatre-goer when guns come into play.
Then cue the ominous thunderstorm and power failure, and this two-plus hours of effective sound and lighting make for a very entertaining evening at your local community theatre.