Johnny McKnight wasn’t aware of Deathtrap when he was asked
to direct it at Dundee Rep. Given the writer, director and co-founder of Random
Accomplice Theatre Company’s pop cultural roots, this was a surprise to him as
much as anyone else.
“I’d never heard of it,” he says of American writer
Ira Levin’s Tony-nominated play, which still holds the record as the longest
running comedy-thriller on Broadway. Four years later it was adapted for a film
starring Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve and directed by Sidney Lumet. “One
of my favourite films is Charade, which is both a comedy and a thriller, and
that’s what I liked about Deathtrap. There’s loads of twists and turns, there’s
a touch of humour, and it’s loaded with really sharp dialogue.
“It also felt really modern. I was surprised it was
from the late 70s, because it looks more like a post-modern take on Dial M for
Murder or something like that. It feels as well that somebody who knows that
genre really well and gave it a wee twist so it still felt fresh as well as
knowing.”
Deathtrap is a play within a play that charts the
travails of a successful playwright suffering from writers’ block. Having read
one of his student’s plays, the writer suggests to his wife that he could
murder his protégé and claim his work as his own. What happens next is a series
of double bluffs that keeps the audience on its toes as thrill is piled upon
thrill to keep the audience guessing right to its darkly comic end.
Beyond its initial Broadway run and the subsequent
film, Levin’s play has become something of a staple of the commercial touring
circuit. In 2002, a production featured David Soul and Susan Penhaligon in the
lead roles, while in 2017 Paul Bradley and ex East Ender Jessie Wallace toured
in the play.
While many of his works ended up as films, Ira Levin
was best known as a novelist, with Rosemary’s Baby, The Stepford Wives and The
Boys from Brazil all ending up on the big screen, as well as later novels such
as Sliver. It was in his plays, however, where his forensic understanding of
genre seemed to have most fun, often lampooning some of the vanities of his own
industry.
Levin’s 1960 play, Critic’s Choice, is a comedy that focuses
on a theatre critic whose wife writes a terrible Broadway play which the critic
wrestles over whether to review it honestly or not. The play was later made
into a film starring Bob Hope and Lucille Ball. Another play, Footsteps,
features a best-selling novelist who is visited by an obsessive fan who knows
everything about her. It too was made into a film, albeit for TV only, starring
Candice Bergen.
“The big thing that Ira Levin was sending up in
Deathtrap was the pretence of people wanting to be rich and famous without doing
anything,” says McKnight. “It’s like that even more now with reality TV, where
people would rather be known for just being famous rather than for their craft
and being good at what they do. Ira Levin takes all that, and understands the
genre perfectly, but writes it with a dark humour that runs through it like a
stick of rock. I know this will sound stupid, but it’s like panto. You respect
what’s gone before in the genre, and then you try and give it a fresh twist. In
that way I felt I understood what he was trying to get at with the play.”
McKnight is diplomatically wary of the film version.
“It’s very 80s,” he says. “It’s not like the play. Ira
Levin wasn’t involved in the film, so the dialogue’s not as good, and it feels
very schlocky. I watched it, and I thought, well, I can forget about it now.”
The evergreen appeal of thrillers, murder mysteries
and other brands of pulp fiction designed to keep you guessing, be it on page,
stage or screen, is something Levin clearly understood in Deathtrap. The recent
wave of Agatha Christie revivals and similarly inclined works by a new wave of
writers tap in to a similar sensibility. The likes of Dial M for Murder,
originally written by Frederick Knott for television before making it to the
stage and made famous by Alfred Hitchcock’s film do likewise. While many of
these have become touring favourites in a similar way to Deathtrap, many have
been reassessed beyond their surface hamminess.
McKnight is full of praise for writer Sarah Phelps’
dark re-workings of Agatha Christie in TV productions of And Then There Were
None, The Witness for the Prosecution and the forthcoming three-part adaptation
of Ordeal by Innocence.
“She has a proper feel for them,” says McKnight. “They
can sometimes be played as camp, but she really gets into the body of the
stories.”
Beyond Deathtrap’s subversion of form, there are also
hints of a gay under-current running throughout.
“It’s the whole point of Act Two,” says McKnight. “It’s
not subtext. That’s the reality of what’s going on, and you can’t take it out, because
that would remove any emotional stake, and it’s there for a reason. Compared to
the stuff that’s seen on a stage these days, it couldn’t be more subtle.”
However much Deathtrap upends its roots, the appeal of
thrillers is a no-brainer.
“I think everyone’s fascinated with thrillers because
we all wonder what it will take to kill someone,” he says. “It’s the same
reason why some people become fascinated with serial killers. It’s always
interesting to find out how bad a person can be. That’s partly why we go to the
theatre to watch plays like Deathtrap, to watch these things happen onstage,
and then feel glad because we’re sane.
“It’s like when you have a row with someone, and when
you tell someone about it, the phrase ‘I could’ve killed them’ is never far
away. Everybody’s had that feeling, but most of us never do anything about it,
whereas in thrillers and murder mysteries, you can be taken into the darkest
corners of other people’s minds.
“Doing a show like Deathtrap in February as well feels
right. Christmas has long gone, and your Visa bills have come in, so no wonder
you’re having dark thoughts.”
McKnight isn’t over-intellectualising the play,
however, and won’t be imposing any kind of ill-fitting concept on a work that’s
perfectly capable of standing on its own two feet.
McKnight checks himself for a second.
“Listen to me,” he says. “When have you ever heard me
talking about trying not to be camp?”
Deathtrap, Dundee Rep, February 10-March 10.
The Herald, February 21st 2018
ends
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