Forum Theatre’s ‘Deathtrap’ is full of surprises

Best-selling author Stephen King once dubbed Ira Levin – famous for “Rosemary’s Baby,” “The Stepford Wives” and “The Boys From Brazil” – as “the Swiss watchmaker of suspense writers,” who could pen circles around everyone else (including King) with the intricacies of his plotting, unexpected turns, reversals, red herrings and twists.

Mark Mannette, who is directing Levin’s classic 1978 murder mystery “Deathtrap” to kick off the 2015-2016 season for the Forum Theatre this week, readily agrees.

“It’s a very clever, very well-written play with interesting characters and witty dialogue,” says Mannette, director of theater at Newman University and a personal murder mystery fan who has acted in “Sleuth” and directed “Accomplice.” “It’s full of twists and is very self-referential. It’s a play-within-a-play that folds back on itself, where the characters comment on the play even as it is happening.”

It’s also a show that can be enjoyed multiple times, even after you know the major plot surprises, Mannette says.

“The first time you see it, you are really caught up in the mystery of what comes next. But when you see it again, you still get something new out of picking up on the subtle clues that lead to the twists. You get a new appreciation for it each time.”

“Deathtrap,” which became the longest-running comic thriller on Broadway after 1,793 performances over four years, is a crowd-pleaser about a famous mystery writer who has suffered writer’s block for years and coasted on his fading fame by conducting seminars. In desperation, he toys with the idea of passing off a brilliant student’s work as his own to revive his career and then doing away with any incriminating evidence – including the student.

Ray Wills plays Sidney, the blocked writer, and Scott Noah plays Clifford, his eager, ambitious student, who has his own ulterior motives for letting his mentor claim his unpublished play, a “one-set, five-character thriller” all too conveniently titled “Deathtrap.”

Kim Dugger plays Myra, the blocked writer’s loving, supportive but somewhat clueless wife. Erin Mundus is Helga, a flamboyant German psychic who barges into the writer’s life with dire warnings that something terrible is about to happen, although she is not sure what. And Larry Hartley is Porter, the writer’s stodgy lawyer, who gets dragged in to settle the convoluted mess of deceit, cunning, double-cross, triple-cross and murder.

“Sidney is a complicated and interesting character. He was a brilliant and successful playwright who had a major hit 18 years ago but has since written four flops and now has writer’s block. He’s living on his wife’s money,” says Wills, a Broadway veteran now back in his Wichita hometown as resident artist for theater students at Newman University and Butler County Community College.

“He’s driven by ego and desperation, and his dark side begins to come out. There’s a line in the show that ‘Nothing recedes like success,’ and poor Sidney is desperate to get back into the spotlight. When he reads his student’s play, he rationalizes that it may be his only way out.”

The challenge in playing the conniving, possibly murderous Sidney is to find a way to make him “attractive” to an audience, so they will become invested in what happens, Wills says.

“Like any villain, Sidney doesn’t think he’s a villain. But he is aware he has problems. He knows he’s messed up. He knows he leads a double life. But he also knows he’s brilliant,” Wills says. “His tragedy is a classic case of hubris.”

As Clifford, Scott Noah says his character is more multi-layered than he first seems.

“Clifford goes through three phases. At first, he’s wide-eyed and excited to be meeting a famous author. As he becomes more comfortable with Sidney and what he wants, he becomes more sarcastic and demanding. Then he shows us his dark, edgy side, that he has ulterior motives,” says Noah, who is enjoying this change of pace from playing a long line of comic heroes at Mosley Street Melodrama, as well as his goofy Velvetina character.

“Clifford has a way of getting what he wants. He’s a little indifferent about being a villain. He’s not a completely horrible person. But he’s very intelligent and clever enough to get things done without having blood on his own hands,” Noah says.

Myra, the writer’s wife, dotes on her husband and supports him unquestioningly but is clueless about her marriage, says Kim Dugger, making a return to the stage for the first time in five years.

“Myra comes from money and has strength when she needs it. But she is also very naive. She was star-struck by her husband’s fame. She doesn’t have both eyes open in her relationship with him,” says Dugger, longtime former music director at Crown Uptown Theatre.

“What surprised me about the script is how much humor there is in it,” Dugger says. “It’s very witty.”

Erin Mundus says her appearances with Wichita Grand Opera (Marcellina in “Marriage of Figaro” and Berta in “Barber of Seville”) helped prepare her for her role as Helga, the flamboyant psychic.

“Helga is a hoot. She’s overly dramatic about everything. But she comes by it honestly because she feels everything so strongly. She is a big hand-talker. My opera background helps a lot with that,” Mundus says about her grand gesturing.

“I like how strong she is in her convictions, even when nobody else is taking her seriously. She knows what she ‘sees.’ But she is also a big self-promoter,” Mundus says. “It takes a lot of energy to keep up with her, but she’s absolutely fun to play.”

For Larry Hartley, his role as attorney Porter is summed up by a description in the show: “Sharp but dull.”

“Porter is a New York attorney who is sharp about his field but dull as a man,” says Hartley, familiar as John Adams in “1776” for the past three summers with Signature Theatre and Marley’s Ghost in the Forum’s “Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.”

“Porter isn’t a large role. But he’s satisfying in a different way. I like the little surprises about him, like he’s an amateur playwright. He’s not fancy, but he notices things. He’s a bit like me in that we are both professional men,” says Hartley, a tech salesman for a hydraulics company. “But he’s a big-city guy while I’m a small-town guy.”

While acting is a part-time thing for Hartley, he says it’s more than a hobby.

“It’s my art. I have a working life but I also love the stage. I enjoy sharing my art with an audience. It’s not a hobby because nobody would work this hard on a hobby,” Hartley says with a chuckle. “I take the stage seriously but I don’t take myself seriously.”

This story was originally published September 2, 2015 at 2:25 PM with the headline "Forum Theatre’s ‘Deathtrap’ is full of surprises."