PLAY REVIEW Writer makes killing in 'Deathtrap' production

A psychic provides some comic relief to the murder mystery.
By LINDA M. LINONIS
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
"Deathtrap" lives up to its name. Those with murder on their minds for monetary gain, success and fame succumb to doing deadly deeds. But murder puts them in another corner.
The play about a floundering playwright and would-be playwrights and the greed that motivates them opened Friday night at the New Castle Playhouse Annex Theatre to a good crowd. The informal setting was achieved with the audience seated at tables and in close proximity to the stage.
Plot
John D. Holt as playwright Sydney Bruhl, who experienced success with "Gun Point," "In for the Kill" and "Sleuth," has had a dry spell for some 18 years. As he says, "Nothing recedes like success." Holt played the frustrated and devious writer to perfection. He delivered his lines with just the right amount of sarcasm and wit.
Bruhl and his wife, Myra, have spent most of her money, and he's hungry to write a hit play -- but a good idea, let alone the words, just won't come. Bruhl thinks out loud about what he could do with a promising play (called "Deathtrap") from a student who attended a workshop he taught.
Myra, played by Rita Maricone, gets the feeling that her husband is thinking more about the reality of murder than those he has written on paper. Maricone's emotions escalate on stage, in between drinks, and she does make the audience see that she's afraid of what her husband might do. She is convincing as the stunned woman who witnesses a murder and then is trapped into being an accomplice by her desperate husband.
But this being a thriller, the murder isn't what it seems even though Maricone was good at conveying the fear of the unknown she was experiencing.
To tell more about what transpires between Sydney and Myra would ruin the surprise, and what happens is indeed shocking and intriguing. The audience doesn't see it coming, and that makes it more interesting.
Other performances
John Pecano as the young playwright Clifford Anderson adds other complications for the couple. Pecano plays the young playwright with the right touch of earnestness, modesty and innocence. He's convincing in this aspect of the role and equally as good as the audience sees his other side as a calculating schemer.
There's a relationship between Bruhl and Anderson that's deftly underplayed with innuendo and gives the audience at least some understanding about what Bruhl does to his wife.
There's comic relief in the character of psychic Helen Ten Dorp with Ardith Jane Regdon in the role. Playing the character as "bigger than life," Regdon made the audience laugh with her delivery in a realistic "old-world" accent and her over-the-top enthusiasm.
Rounding out the cast was Larry C. Baker, who played lawyer Porter Milgram. Baker is matter-of-fact and straightforward as the dull lawyer. Ten Dorp and Milgram find themselves toying with the idea about writing a play from their experiences with the Bruhls. They fall into the "trap," rounding out the cycle of greed leading to something bad.
"Deathtrap" is a ruse that confounds the audience with its twists and turns, and the play will delight with its surprises.