Last night I saw a production of Deathtrap at the Knysna Playhouse. Apparently it’s supposed to be a comedy-thriller. From the moment the first two performers appeared on the stage and opened their stage frightened mouths it was obvious that this was to be a dismal failure on both fronts.
By interval I was bent on leaving. Unfortunately my company was adamant on soldiering on for various reasons. I resorted to drinking a double of something strong to numb myself to the impending boredom of the second half in the hope that it would stop me laughing out loud.
The set was poorly designed with scant attention to detail. The music was an absolute disaster. The performers appeared to be attempting a dry run as they bumbled and stumbled over their lines. It’s common knowledge that timing is critical to humour in any medium from animation to film to theatre. With the director in the lead role, the lunatics were really running the asylum. And so it was that the lifeless characters nervously rushed their lines and talked almost over each other without the slightest concern for pause to reflect, consider or react. I’ve seen better primary school productions. Perhaps taking the title and running with it in a curiously literal interpretation, like poor robots, they breathed death into every line. All potential for humour was bled dry and some of the audience occasionally laughed instead of cringing due to sheer disbelief and desperation at how thoroughly pathetic the production was.
The only glimmer of hope was the performance of the German psychic character. With good skill for accent and a nice comic sensibility, she breathed some life into the morgue like situation and resurrected some dyingly desperate laughs from the aging audience.
It’s difficult to say if the play is actually funny after seeing one poorly executed delivery. Apparently it’s the longest running comedy-thriller on Broadway. Of course this begs the question: how many comedy-thrillers are there on Broadway? However, there’s a film by the same name that I’ll attempt to remember to see at some point to lay the mystery to rest.
I would recommend this performance to drunken cynics with sardonic sensibilities. Everyone else should rather stay home and watch crap on TV, where channel hopping provides a liberating form of cheap relief.
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