PORT ANGELES — The Port Angeles Community Players kick off their 70th Main Stage Season with Ira Levin’s modern thriller, “Deathtrap,” opening tonight and running through Sept. 25.
The play, directed by Ron Graham, will be performed at the Port Angeles Community Playhouse, 1235 E. Lauridsen Blvd., at 7:30 p.m. tonight and Saturday, Tuesday and Sept. 16-17, 20, 23-24; and at 2 p.m. this Sunday and Sept. 18 and Sept. 25.
Tickets are $18 and can be purchased online at www.pacommunityplayers.org or at the door prior to the performance. While inside the theater, patrons are asked to wear face masks.
Since its premiere in 1978, “Deathtrap” ran for over 1,800 performances on Broadway and was nominated for four Tonys, including Best Play.
The play is set in an 18th century carriage house that has been remodeled into a modern home and is now owned by Sidney Bruhl and his wife, Myra.
Sidney is a playwright who had a big hit 18 years ago but has been in a long creative dry spell and now teaches college courses on play writing in Connecticut.
During one of his playwriting seminars, he meets a promising young writer who has written a cunning new mystery play called “Deathtrap,” which is so good that it leads Sidney to contemplate murder and claiming authorship of this new play.
In an adjoining farmhouse is an internationally famous psychic who has alarming premonitions about violence in the house and dire warnings about a young man “in black boots.” There’s also a house full of lethal murder weapons — props from past productions of Sidney’s mystery plays.
Ira Levin, the playwright of “Deathtrap,” was also the author of “The Stepford Wives,” “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The Boys from Brazi,” all of which, like “Deathtrap,” were adapted into films.
Levin helped to popularize the sub-genre of “Feminist Horror” in his books, writing that spoke to the deep fears of who controls women’s bodies, power dynamics between men and women, how modern society treats or believe victims of abuse and so on.
What is the element of “Feminist Horror” in “Deathtrap”?
“Oh no,” said Community Players board member Richard Stephens, who also is the costume designer for this production. “I couldn’t possibly tell you; it would give too much of the plot and surprise away. Well, one of the surprises — the show is crammed full of surprises, shocks and twists, all the way up to the very end.”
The cast of “Deathtrap” includes Tim Thorn as Sidney, Jennifer Saul as his wife, Myra. Dylan Bronte makes his Playhouse debut as Clifford Anderson, the promising young writer. Angela Poynter is the internationally famous Dutch psychic Helga ten Dorn and Mark Valentine is Sidney’s personal lawyer, Porter Milgrim.
