Ross Valley Players Presents DEATHTRAP

Ross Valley Players presents Deathtrap, written by Ira Levin, which became an American thriller film in 1982. This ingeniously structured play offers a rare and skillful blending of two priceless theatrical ingredients: gasp-inducing thrills and spontaneous laughter.

Director Chloe Bronzan describes the play, "It's a challenge to write much about Deathtrap without revealing the secrets of its plot, so instead I will talk about why I have chosen to set our production in the early 1960s, with a "technicolor Hitchcock film" theme in mind. When this play premiered in 1978, it was considered contemporary, however, to a 2019 audience, it will appear charmingly dated. Through the lens of modern technology, key plot points such as the absence of the "carbon copy" of a typewritten manuscript will lack credibility. I see this as a marvelous opportunity to embrace a sense of pre-digital nostalgia and set the play back a few years, to a stylized version of an era in which the available technology is the same, but the setting more entertainingly matches the play's genre and the many Hitchcock-era films and plays Ira Levin's script seems to pay homage to."

Bronzan continues, "For those of you who are fellow fans of this genre, here are the films and plays I have been inspired by while working on this project. Whether intentional or accidental on the playwright's part, the thematic similarities are undeniable: Dial M for Murder, Angel Street/Gaslight (both successful plays and films, both directly referenced in the script), Rope, Suspicion, Strangers on a Train and Diabolique (1955) to name a few. In the story of Rope, a new character arrives in Act 2 (played by Jimmy Stewart in the film version), serving as an amateur sleuth who solves the crime and, in the process, becomes a character the audience can root for. I won't spoil the play by telling you who this is in our story, but rather leave you to enjoy the search for him (or her.) Similar to Rope, Deathtrap presents the unique challenge of a seemingly shifting protagonist throughout the story. (Again, I don't want this to be too much of a spoiler, so I challenge you to observe which character you are most rooting for at any given time and whether it shifts for you throughout the play.)

Another reason I was excited to set this play in theme of a Hitchcock film is that, like these films, our story has a very clear MacGuffin.

MacGuffin" is a term coined by the Master of Suspense himself, to describe a "...plot device in the form of some goal, desired object or another motivator that the protagonist pursues, often with little or no narrative explanation. The MacGuffin's importance to the plot is not the object itself, but rather its effect on the characters and their motivations. The MacGuffin technique is common in films, especially thrillers. Usually, the MacGuffin is revealed in the first act, and therefore declines in importance. It may reappear at the climax of the story."* It won't be difficult to spot the MacGuffin in our play, but I'll leave you to the challenge.

Regardless of a specific production's treatment of the play, Ira Levin has crafted a tight and witty script that will stand on its own. To use his words from the play, "A director couldn't even hurt it." We shall put that theory to the test! It probably goes without saying, but my favorite aspect of this script is that it has a sense of humor about itself. I hope you will laugh, be surprised by and thoroughly enjoy our production of Deathtrap!"