Review: DEATH TRAP at Fulton Theatre

I remember scouring the aisles of Blockbuster Video back in the day.  One of the box covers that always intrigued me the most was Death Trap.  It featured a giant Rubik’s cube adorned with weapons, and a group of people peeking out of it as if they were looking to see if the coast was clear.  I had no idea at the time what all of this meant, but it looked really cool.

Several years later, I finally got to see the play and realized what an appropriate image that was. Death Trap is chock full of twists and turns, just when you think you have it figured out, a new complication arises.  There is danger all around, and things aren’t always as they seem.

Scott Langdon stars as down on his luck playwright, Sidney Bruhl.  Bruhl is desperate for another hit,and is willing to kill to do so.  Amy Decker plays his wife, Myra.  She is smart and supportive, and serves as the play’s voice of reason.

When Bruhl learns that one of his writing students wrote the next great masterpiece thriller, he is tempted to do anything and everything to get to a piece of that success.

Kevin Toniazzo-Naughton plays Clifford Anderson, the fledgling author. Anderson a big hunky guy with a lot of secrets. When he comes to the Bruhl residence for some advice on his new show, he ends up getting a lot more than he bargained for.

To reveal any additional details would be venturing into spoiler territory.  While I liked the pace and the energy of the show, I feel some of the performances were a little large for the small fourth floor space.  Also, while the characters had some funny lines (especially Lanene Charters as the undiscernibly accented psychic, Helga Ten Dorp), the audience really wasn’t connecting as much as expected.  It was hard to tell if the actors needed to punch up the comedy, or if the audience was fixated on the show’s suspense.

Props designer, Katelin Walsko deserves “props” for a plethora of nifty, working items used in this play. Similarly, the stage combat in the show looks pretty realistic which is also difficult to accomplish is such a relatively small space.

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