OPINION

Theater Review: Drop Dead Perfect

There’s no need to leave Manhattan in search of the ideal summer “camp”. All one needs to do is take a trip to the Theatre at St. Clements for a dose of Idris Seabright’s histrionics. Seabright, a Floridian old maid, is played with masterful comedic skill by Everett Quinton. Quinton is best known for his collaboration of the Ridiculous Theater company with his late partner Charles Ludlam. Through August 10, this “drag-tastic” performer is savoring each moment of extended gazes and glances as though they were his last theatrical bites on earth. Let us pray to Gods of comedy that they are not, as Quinton’s star turn in Drop Dead Perfect is absolute perfection.

Seabright resides in a shabby chic Key West beach house and is lamenting the potential loss of Vivien, a young lady (played with delicate drag charm by Jason Edward Cook) with her sights set on an art career in New York. More will be revealed on that relationship later. Phineas Fenn, Seabright’s lawyer, shows up to ply her with hallucinogenic pills. To add spice to the mix, a fiery Cuban named Ricardo (Jason Cruz) knocks on the door to sweep Idris off her feet.

The plot continues to unfold like a melodrama from the fifties and, under Joe Brancato’s direction, this wonderfully versatile cast makes the most out of each hyperbolic moment. Any show incorporating a dance to Yma Sumac’s “Malambo No. 1” not once, but twice, earns its’ mark for silliness of the highest quality. If you’ve never heard the song, watch it on youtube and brace yourself for a fit of giggles.

The script, which makes numerous references to TV’s I Love Lucy, is penned by Erasmus Fenn. After reading Fenn’s curious bio in the program, one must wonder if he and Quinton aren’t the same individual. Whether they are or aren’t makes no difference. This is one delicious piece of theater you’ll be glad you attended. Be advised, however: Drop Dead Perfect ends this Sunday, August 10th, so you’d better hurry. Oh, and leave the kiddies at home.

Drop Dead Perfect plays at Theatre at St. Clements. 423 West 46th street between 9th and 10th. For tickets and more information,visit http://www.dropdeadperfect.com/

Partners On FX Is Severely Lacking

by Michael Tyminski

Partners: Mondays at 9 Eastern on FX

FX has made a number of bold and interesting moves over the past few years – they focused on expanding their comedy division and had strong successes with Louie, Archer, and The League. Two years later, they laid the groundwork for a split into three networks: the FX we all know and love, comedy-centric FXX, and the movie channel FXM. Lately, the network has been an aggressive participant in the event series trend, with limited run series like the various seasons of American Horror Story and Fargo. However, they pay for all of these gambles from a trick they learned on one of their least critically acclaimed shows in the form of Anger Management, where they started using a 10 episode first season and 90 episode second season model to bring in top name stars for their newer shows, like they do with Monday’s new debut Partners.

Partners stars Kelsey Grammar and Martin Lawrence as two attorneys who start a legal partnership at their respective nadirs. Grammar’s character, Alan Braddock, is a hotshot attorney who just got fired from the family business and is making money doing some horrifically unethical legal work. Lawrence’s character, Marcus Jackson, on the other hand, is battling a divorce and has much of his work being performed pro-bono for baked goods. When the court forces the two to work together, they form a partnership in an attempt to be profitable and ethical something neither has completely grasped.

Partners is ultimately a mess. It’s pilot is an origin story that feels thrown together, with it’s points being held together with the absolute minimum of internal logic. The end result, is a story that feels not only rushed, but nonsensical at points due to the wild jumps of logic that the show makes. Furthermore, this show about lawyers seems to take a long detour into Braddock and Jackson being private investigators (while their assistants do seemingly nothing) at least once during every episode. Add in some tacked on family subplots by giving Braddock an unnecessary daughter and you have an incoherent plot soup.

Worse than that, much of Partners feels incredibly tired. Many of the the jokes feel like a raunchier version of something out of a 90’s sitcom (which is no surprise when you consider the showrunner is Robert Boyett whose mostly known for ABC’s TGIF block). This tiredness extends out to much of the line delivery, which for Lawrence especially feels flat and uninspired, as if it’s clear he took the script for the paycheck.

The one bright spot on the show is Grammar-himself, who keeps the same Grammar-esque pomposity and tone adds a little bit of the levity to the shows delivery. While normally I’m not a fan of someone hamming up on a sitcom, here it’s necessary if only to breathe life into the otherwise dull proceedings. Unfortunately, however, even that one bright spot is but a tiny shrub in the path of the awful tornado that Partners ultimately is.

The Final Verdict: The latest 10-90 experiment by FX, I would be surprised if Partners makes a second season. It mixes tired jokes, incoherent plotting, and mostly uninspired acting into what feels like an interminable 22 minutes. Skip this one, FX doesn’t misfire often, but Partners is a complete dud.

Theater Review: “Pageant” `

by Ryan Leeds

Photo courtesy of Jenny Anderson. Looks courtesy of of make-up and a splash of mother nature — Photo courtesy of Jenny Anderson. Looks courtesy of of make-up and a splash of Mother Nature.

Wisconsin might be known for its‘ dairy but right now, New York is rivaling the mid-west state for cheese production in a revival of Bill Russell and Frank Kelley’s drag musical Pageant. Originally premiering in 1991, this spoof on beauty pageants pits six “ladies” from various parts of the country against one another to earn the title of Miss Glamouresse. One by one, each of the six contestants struts “her” stuff in swimsuit, talent, and interview competitions. The hair is sprayed, the nails are dried, the lashes done, the lipstick applied and…the tuck secure?!?

It turns out, underneath all of the perfectly flowing hair and dazzling dresses, that our bevel of beauties is really a bunch of beaus. Nick Cearley (Miss Great Plains), Nic Cory (Miss Industrial North East), Alex Ringler (Miss Texas), Marty Thomas (Miss Deep South), Seth Tucker (Miss West Coast), and Curtis Wiley (Miss Bible Belt) each make dazzling divas and shine individually throughout the show. The real standout here though, is John Bolton, who brings an unctuous charm to the evening’s proceedings as Frankie Cavalier. Channelling Pat Sajak, Bert Parks, and every other obsequious TV host, Bolton’s Cavalier is the stuff of parody heaven. As the night gets underway, our hammy host engages audience members to become the night’s judges.

Musically there is nothing particularly memorable in Pageant, but let’s be honest: No one intended this to be a sweeping epic with French flags and heroic war anthems. Much like a traditional beauty contest, the vacuity cup is filled to the brim. Thankfully, both the cast and audience are playfully self-aware and siphon every drop of glitter and camp from this amusing beauty bowl.

Pageant is now playing off Broadway at the Davenport Theatre, 354 West 45th Street between 8th and 9th. Showtimes are Saturdays through Mondays. For tickets and more information visit http://www.pageantmusical.com/

Fool Me Makes Summer TV Magic

by Michael Tyminski

Penn and Teller’s Fool Me: Wednesdays at 8 Eastern on the CW

I have opened numerous CW reviews talking about the networks love for supernatural dramas and teen dramas, but the other pillar they stand on is obscenely cheap unscripted programming to get them through the summer months. This time around however, they’ve managed to cross two of their pillars yet again, with a reality competition built around the paranormal (or whatever fancy word for magic you wish to use this time around). As a fan of fourth-wall breaking duo Penn and Teller’s last TV effort (Bulls**t), I figured I would take a look at their newest offering (not actually that new, this is a port from across the pond) to see if it brings the same level of entertainment.

Fool Me puts the titular duo head to head vs. a magician, who performs a magic trick. Penn and Teller, then need to replicate the trick after seeing the trick only once. Any magician who fools the veteran illusionists gets the right to perform with them during a show at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas. Hosting the show is well known British TV personality (and equally obscure on this side of the pond) Jonathan Ross.

You can tell that Fool Me was originally not shot on a CW budget from moment one, as the show opens with a very cinematic and swooping crane shot. Even the shows interview segments look particularly polished (even in relation to the standards of US reality shows). This runs contrary to CW’s prior summer offerings, which seem particularly cheap in comparison (see: the revival of Whose Line is it Anyway and Oh Sit for example)

The truest advantage of this show is that Penn and Teller have such a good grasp of the show that you simultaneously never feel like they’re not the stars but at the same time know when to step back and let the acts win over the crowd. This is particularly notable by their raucous closing act – a number in which Penn razzes a crowd member for a while with a basic card trick before the true trick is revealed when the card in question was palmed with a knife through his hand.

There are some flaws with the show however. Ross is not nearly game enough as a host, often dropping empty platitudes and awkwardly playing off of Penn and Teller’s charisma. This shows itself most glaringly during the opening act, a loaded dice trick where Ross’s cellphone was under the threat of being smashed during the entirety of the trick. Even with his own talk show across the pond, it often seems like Ross feels the need to one-up everyone on stage, creating a very awkward vibe whenever he has to interact with anyone on the stage.

The Final Verdict: I don’t expect a lot from my midsummer filler programming – don’t bore me, and don’t make me think too much, and in a lot of ways Fool Me works on both counts. Ross is kind of annoying, but there’s a reason that Penn and Teller command the amount of attention that any other magician (even the ones who get the occasional one off special cannot). Check it out, especially if you enjoy Penn Jillette’s acerbic wit or enjoy seeing some theatricality.

Running Wild Feels More Like Running Mild

by Michael Tyminski

Running Wild w/Bear Grylls – Mondays at 8 Eastern on NBC

The last decade brought two styles of reality television into vogue: shows about people roughing it in exotic and often dangerous locales that seemingly put the star in the face of death on a weekly basis (Survivorman, Man vs. Wild), and shows that took a look into the life of the rich and opulent (see any Bravo show that isn’t Top Chef). Needless to say, in the desperate scramble to come up with some summer television, NBC has elected to mix some roughing it chocolate with what it hopes will be some celebrity peanut butter in order to score a hit with it’s newest show: Running Wild w/ Bear Grylls.

Running Wild w/Bear Grylls is at it’s core about one simple concept: extreme vacationing with A-Listers. With a guest list that includes Zac Efron, Channing Tatum, and Ben Stiller, Grylls ventures around the world finding the ideal spots that will push their given celebrity to the limits. Monday’s premiere begins with Zac Efron traversing New York’s Catskill Mountains (an interesting call if only because when I think Catskills, I think skiing, old comedians, and Dirty Dancing – not life or death survivalism) trying to finish a 2 day course that includes a number of challenges including rappelling, skydiving, and survival.

So how is Running Wild? Well it’s pretty slow. There’s a lack of real tone differentiation between it’s high adventure and downtime moments, causing many of the journey’s legs to bleed together. I found a similar problem with last year’s Get Out Alive, meaning that they didn’t really learn the stylistic lessons of last year’s attempt at the same format. This is a shame, because a 120 rappel, skydiving, and worm omelets are all basically played as humdrum as a walk through the park on a Saturday afternoon. I don’t necessarily ask for excessive dramatics here, but some sense of stakes would be nice.

Oddly enough, the slowness actually contributes to the show’s strongest point: for a guy who’s famous for being stuck in the woods alone, Grylls is a surprisingly good interviewer. If Running Wild was truly meant to be celebrity rehabilitation puff-piece in the wild, then Grylls more than holds up his end of the bargain, coaxing his guests through numerous tasks – (the Catskills become Grylls personal high ropes course) while using the downtime to ask seemingly probing questions that ultimately make that weeks celebrities look better. This distinction becomes night and day when you see Efron’s cutaways, as the cocksure actor in many of the shows cutaways gives way to a more vulnerable soul out in the wild.

The Final Verdict: For the second straight summer I’m reviewing a Bear Grylls reality show, and for the second straight year, the show feels like it’s just there. It’s a true shame because Grylls is a quality TV personality, it’s just that Running Wild makes life-or-death resemble a trip to 7-Eleven. This is the sort of show that typically puts my thumbs firmly in the middle – check it out if you have nothing better to watch on an early Monday or are waiting for American Ninja Warrior.

Food Fighters Scores A Split Decision

by Michael Tyminski

Food Fighters: Tuesdays at 8 Eastern on NBC

The competition genre has seemingly been on it’s last legs for a while as the genre (Voice aside) has struggled to produce new hits. The end result is that reality hours for the most part have been down across the board, except at the peacock, whose newfound respectability (unfortunately, much to my chagrin, I can’t put quotation marks around respectability anymore) has a summer schedule jam-packed with as much unscripted TV as possible (Last Comic Standing, America’s Got Talent, and American Ninja Warrior being just some of NBC’s recent summer offerings). They add to this stable of competition television with Tuesday offering Food Fighters.

Food Fighters, at it’s core is like Bobby Flay’s Throwdown on steroids. One contestant, with their signature dishes (everyone’s got one – they typically get busted out for dinner parties and the like) must take on not one celebrity chef, but five whom attempt to knock the contestant off their culinary pedestal. The show stars Adam Richman (of misguided thinspiration scandal fame as well as Man vs. Food) as the host, while the celebrity chef pool features a mixture of familiar Food Network stars (Duff Goldman, Cat Cora), brand ambassadors (Lorena Garcia), and new faces (Jet Tila, G. Garvin, Elizabeth Falkner).

The first thing I noticed while watching Food Fighters was the grandiosity. The kitchen area is two tiered and sweeping, the show doesn’t spare it’s prize budget (you’re looking at a $100,000 top prize that seems attainable, but at the same time it’s tough to walk away with less than $5,000 – $10,000). While a lot of cooking shows have tried to give this sort of vibe in the past – this show is truly the closest an American company has gotten to copying Kitchen Stadium from the Japanese Iron Chef, with it’s decadent two tier kitchen, tons of lights and almost game show like appearance.

This grandiosity, thankfully, extends out to the chefs, who play up generally affable villains in the pro-wrestling mold. This include Kevin Belton, a Cajun chef with a knack for witty banter and playing to the crowd, and Marcel Vigneron, a former Top Chef competitor who has a knack for unorthodox cooking methods. It’s Garcia, however, who steals the show by putting on balancing act unlike any other with some impressive knife work and nimbly sashaying around Richman when he gets in the way during a mid showdown interview. Surprisingly subdued amidst the largeness of this show is Richman himself, who despite operating as host, commentator, and interviewer manages to fill a background role without taking the spotlight away from the competitors.

Of course, none of this grandiosity means a thing without a sound format, and Food Fighters comes through in that regard. Seeing how it’s ultimately the battle between home cook and celebrity chef, the show relies on two key twists to balance the tables. First and foremost, in a twist taken from Throwdown, the judges are average citizens, who are put to a blind taste test. Secondly, however, is the strategic element of Food Fighters, where the home chef picks which chef challenges which recipe, meaning that seafood experts could be forced to bake, while Italian cuisine maestros can be pushed into making tacos.

There are, however, a few mild quibbles. First and foremost, the five course setup gets slightly monotonous at points, even if the timers were often incredibly short (all of the battles ran between 15 and 25 minutes in length). The judging segments also seemed fairly weak, with the judges often restating the obvious, which makes some of the decisions feel downright puzzling when Richman announces them. Finally, the show only bothers to promote the end-bosses of any given show, which is a true shame, since it slightly misleads it’s audience.

The Final Verdict: It doesn’t necessarily add a ton to a genre that’s pretty well played out (both food competitions and competition style network shows), but Food Fighters won me over by coming way closer to the pinnacle of the genre than most of the cooking shows out there and generally sidestepping most of the melodramatics and ridiculous gimmicks that are a staple of the format. It’s downfall, however comes in it’s high variance, like many game shows, there will be some curbstomp level showdowns (one chef used egg roll wrap for his tacos because he “couldn’t find the tortillas” and got soundly whumped 5-0) to go with some truly amazing battles (Garcia’s showdown in particular, even the result is a headscratcher). Check it out if you get the chance, even if it’s the sort of show that will likely work better catching the odd battle or two on Hulu.

The Strain Is A Virus Stuck In A Useless Host

by Michael Tyminski

The Strain: Sundays at 10 Eastern on FX

Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen a ton of fantasy and horror on the airwaves – NBC has found a Friday night niche running out shows like Dracula, Hannibal, and Grimm. AMC scored a huge hit with The Walking Dead (which will be it’s last major tentpole standing after Mad Men leaves the air next year). HBO has found strong success off of shows like Game of Thrones and True Blood. Even Showtime has entered the fantasy game with Penny Dreadful. Now FX, which has made it’s name in drama off of gritty realistic dramas like The Shield, The Americans, Sons of Anarchy and Justified is getting into the supernatural game with The Strain.

The Strain, the brainchild of film director Guillermo Del Toro, follows the CDC Canary Team, a unit designated to handle to some of the world’s worst viral outbreaks. This time around, however, the outbreak is a virus that afflicts it’s hosts with an ancient strain of vampirism. As a result, Canary Team member Ephraim Goodweather (Corey Stoll) assembles a rag-tag army of New Yorkers to fight the vampires in a war that will determine the fate of humanity.

Let’s start with the positives: when The Strain wants to scare the pants off of you, it’s going to scare the pants off of you. This is particularly notable in the slower early portions of the pilot, where the episode lulls you into a false sense of security before using it’s jump scares judiciously. The show also manages to give off a couple of solid gore scares along the way for good measure, as you expect from a show that gives you large numbers of dead and undead bodies floating around at all times.

Unfortunately, those crystallized horror moments are lost in a bloated pilot. As is typical for FX, The Strain‘s premiere clocks in at around 100 minutes. Unfortunately, the pilot squanders most of it’s first half setting up awkward romance and divorce plots for Goodweather that feel tacked onto the show’s ultimate premise of good vs. evil. What makes these bloated moments particularly damning though, is that these moments don’t actually make me care about Goodweather (or any of the protagonists for that matter).

The flatness of the writing unfortunately extends out to much of the show, including the acting. It often seems like the actors are sleepwalking through their lines, even though the only characters with lines so far are the living ones. Similarly, while many horror movies tend to have their fun little moments (often when an undesirable character gets theirs), The Strain exists on being drab everywhere – even plucky moments where Goodweather and assistant Nora Martinez (Mia Maestro) are exchanging what one would assume would be banter are completely devoid of punchiness.

The Final Verdict: There’s a good show waiting in The Strain if it just cut out all the fat and focused on the primary plotline. Unfortunately, with the amount of filler in the show, it’s going to take a lot more than diet and exercise to slim down what felt like a grossly bloated pilot. I’d skip this one or wait until the season’s closer to over before looking at it– Sundays at 10 are prime real estate for dramas and this one has to be the weakest new offering in that time slot.

Theater Review: “The Religion Thing”

by Ryan Leeds

Rumspringa-the time frame when typically conservative Amish teens are permitted to taste all the debauchery the world can offer- is a punchline used by stand-up comedian Glick (Curran Conner) at the start of Renee Calarco’s The Religion Thing. After taunting and teasing the audience with the running joke, Glick adopts a more serious tone and observes how, despite their opportunity to permanently rebel , most Amish adolescents return to the fold. In the 90 minutes that follow, we are fortunate enough to witness a similar faith journey of all four characters in this extremely funny and contemplative dramatic comedy.

Mo (Katherine McLeod) and Brian (Jamie Geiger) are a seemingly succesful couple. She’s Catholic. He’s Jewish. Neither adhere closely to their own religions until Mo’s best friend Patti (Danielle O’Farrell) ,whom she has not seen in quite some time stops by the house with her new husband, Jeff (Andrew W. Smith) . Mo and Brian giggle at the fact that the two newlyweds met at their evangelical christian mega church. Once a “party girl”, Patti has now shunned her devilish ways and has decided to quit her career as a lawyer, all in pursuit of being the wife and mother she’s destined herself to be. Patti’s drastic life choice doesn’t bode well with Mo–primarily due to her unique of partnership with Jeff. More could be written on this, but why ruin the plot?

As the two-act play unfolds, we gain depth and insight into Calarco’s characters as they struggle to find peace and resolution in their own individuals faiths. Two scenes-one in which Jeff’s explains his path to eternal salvation- the other, Brian’s imagined dream visit from a Rabbi are endearing, charming, and redemptive.

While it floats like a breezy sitcom, The Religion Thing simultaneously cuts deeper to the core of spirituality with truths that must be explored by each couple. Director Douglas Hall has assembled an excellent cast that handles the material with a fine balance of thoughtfulness and hilarity. The dialogue is crisp, honest, and most importantly, respectful towards the impact that religion (or lack thereof) has on each of our adult lives. Its’ intention is not to sway us towards a particular dogma, but through its‘ clever writing, will grant us the opportunity to question the value we place on our spiritual doctrines.

The Religion Thing, presented by Project Y Theater. Now playing through August 1st, 2014 at the cell (338 W. 23rd Street between 8th and 9th ave.). For tickets and more information visit www.projectytheatre.org

The Generation of Change

by Alex David Jimenez

Roughly six years ago, when my now fiancé and I had just moved in together, the United States Presidential election of 2008 made history. Just under a year earlier, when we began dating, I recall him saying that he didn’t believe that Barack Obama stood a chance of winning the election. He told me, though he hoped otherwise, that he didn’t believe that we would see a black U.S. president in our lifetime.

Ten months later it came to pass.

In the same respect, another remark my partner made, amid our many deep conversations during candlelight dinners and Sunday mornings-in, was that he didn’t wholly believe that we would see an America with full recognition and legal marriage equality among gay and lesbian couples. I argued otherwise. At that point of exchange, one state legally allowed and acknowledged same-sex couple’s right to marry. DOMA was however still constitutional – the federal government could legally overlook many of those rights.

Same Sex Marriage 2014 — via nbcnews.com

Today, six years later, nineteen states legally allow and acknowledge same-sex couple’s right to marry, and DOMA has been eradicated.

Same-sex marriage is easily one of the most controversial and bare-knuckled fights any group of any respective community has ever fought. In our lifetime, and stretching back into the history of American rights, the gay marriage campaign is quickly becoming as divisive and as landmark as those of the abolition of slavery and women’s rights. While many did concur with my partner in his vision of a limited America within the span of our lives, and while many still do believe as such, it can be said that the shift in favor of a tolerant America is certainly in occurrence – right before our very eyes.

Why?

Just over ten years ago there were no U.S. states that recognized marriage as anything but between a man and a woman. In the span of only one decade, that number has gone from zero to 19. In each state where gay marriage is still illegal, there are lawsuits pending to challenge the fundamental ethics of the bans enacted. In these past ten years, something has changed. Something came about in the broad scope of politics and the voice of the people. There are certainly many factors at play, and ultimately there is an avalanche of causes leading to the change in overall American attitude. Yet what I believe is simpler: one event largely began to create transformation. Just beyond the past decade, the millennials began to vote. The millennials began to join the workforce. And the millenials were far more unafraid to come out as openly gay and lesbian than those generations before them.

The statistics are simple and speak for themselves. Since about 2004 there has been a rapid shift in the public opinion across America. The popular opinion that gay marriage should be illegal in America has sharply dropped in the last ten years from 55% down to below 36%, and falling. Contrastingly, the opinion that it should be legal has risen from 41% in 2004 to over 58% today. And climbing.

Where is this opinion coming from? Well, according to statistics, the majority of the rise is attributed to America’s youth. The millennials contribute a staggering 81% in favor of the legality of gay marriage, as opposed to the 44% of those who are in favor over the age 65.

Do politics play a part? Certainly. As does religion of course. And yet regardless of conservatism and strict dogmatic ties, the youth is still bringing forth the turn of the tide. The generations over the years have been very clearly changing in their position and stance on the idea that all couples should be granted the fundamental and constitutional right to marry in this, a free country of tolerance and diversity.

via the Public Religion Research Institute

Many have no faith in the millennial generation. They believe that integrity and responsibility is veritably non-existent in the course of their futures. Yet it cannot be argued that they are certainly the generation of change, be it for the better or the worse. In the capacity of this particular argument, for those who have gay family and gay friends; for those who have been too afraid to come out of the closet in the past and have done so recently because of the upswing of acceptance nationwide; for those people, it is certainly for the better.

I for one believe that my country, the United States, will legalize and recognize gay marriages in each of its 50 states in my lifetime.

Theater Review: “Deathtrap”

by Ryan Leeds

90 minutes from New York City, along the banks of the calm Delaware River, an intricate plan of murder is unfolding. The plan involves seasoned playwright and professor Sidney Bruhl (Saxon Palmer), his inspired protegé, Clifford Anderson (Raviv Ullman), Bruhl’s anxiety ridden wife, Myra (Angela Pierce), famous Dutch psychic Helga ten Dorp (Marsha Mason), and gold digging lawyer Porter Milgrim (David Wohl).

Deathtrap, the classic play from Ira Levin, is currently receiving a mostly fine treament-with a few minor missteps -in the Bucks County Playhouse production of this long running Broadway show. The original splattered onto the New York stage in 1978, and continued to delicately strike a balance between terror and amusement for 4 years. For theater geeks who care, Marian Seldes played Myra, and she performed in every single one of the 1,809 performances during the run.It earned her a mention in the Guinness Book of World Records. At this quaint theater in Pennsylvania, Pierce will only have to play opposite her mediocre counter-part, Palmer, a few more times before the show ends its’ run through July 13th.

Pierce adds the perfect amount of paranoia and fear to Myra, while Palmer’s interpretation of Sydney seems disengaged and distant; a stark contrast to what should be charming, yet diabolical. Ullman brings a boyish charm with underpinnings of the devil himself , and Mason provides a welcome breath of humor in this otherwise intense tale of jealously and greed.

To elaborate much on the plot would be to divulge the surprises, and there are plenty of twists and turns to hold playgoers in suspense. Evan Cabnet’s direction and staging could benefit from sharpening, as some of the moments intended to shock merely cause a mild reaction of curiosity. Still, it is easy to understand what made this show one of the biggest hits on Broadway and when the body count is done, it is fair to observe that Bucks County Playhouse is bringing justice to this gem of a thriller.

Deathtrap is now playing through July 13th at the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, PA. Several nearby shops and dining options make it an excellent day trip getaway from NYC. For tickets and information, visit http://bcptheater.org.

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