Northlight’s thriller a winner
If you plan to see Northlight Theatre’s “Dial M for Murder,” prepare for an edge-of-your-seat experience. That’s where you’ll be for much of director Georgette Verdin’s artful production, which is so engrossing that several times during the opening I forgot to take notes.
For a copious note-taker like me, that’s saying something.
The combination of Jeffrey Hatcher’s script, a virtuoso ensemble and Verdin’s brisk direction makes for riveting theater. Then again, this tale of a husband plotting to kill his wealthy wife has been thrilling audiences for more than 70 years.
Hatcher’s is the latest adaptation of Frederick Knott’s well-plotted suspense tale that premiered on the BBC in March 1952. The play opened in London’s West End several months later and in October of that year, it opened on Broadway. Alfred Hitchcock’s film starring Grace Kelly and Ray Milland bowed in 1954, the first of several TV and film adaptations, including 1998’s “A Perfect Murder” starring Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow. While Hatcher’s 2021 adaptation tweaks some details and updates the love triangle at the play’s center, the plot and the setting -- an expensive home in 1950s London stylishly designed by Mara Ishinara Zinky -- remain the same.
The play opens with wealthy socialite Margot (a multifaceted performance by Lucy Carapetyan that combines vulnerability and restlessness) explaining to her friend and former lover Maxine (an assured, perceptive Elizabeth Laidlaw whose performance recalls a young Eve Arden) that she is being blackmailed. Someone stole from her a letter from Maxine referencing their affair. Fearing a scandal, Margot paid off the blackmailer but never received the letter in return.
Unbeknownst to Margot, her husband, Tony (Ryan Hallahan), a failed author turned publishing public relations flack, knew of her affair with novelist Maxine. Motivated by greed and a desire for vengeance, Tony hires an unsavory college acquaintance named Lesgate (Felipe Carrasco, a convincing scoundrel) to kill Margot. But the plan goes awry. Lesgate ends up dead, prompting Hallahan’s impressively improvisational Tony to pin Lesgate’s murder on Margot, who quickly becomes the prime suspect of police inspector Hubbard (the terrific Nick Sandys).
During the play, a character describes the components of a good thriller: high stakes, suspense, foreshadowed events and at least one murder. Hatcher’s canny, clever drama fulfills them all. Rooted in cat-and-mouse games and fraught with tension, it’s a tale skillfully told by a director who knows how to keep her audience engaged. She gets assistance from lighting designer Eric Watkins, whose looming shadows amplify the unease.
Hallahan is impeccable as the self-aware, subtly misogynistic, masterfully manipulative Tony, a would-be writer “full of promise that didn’t pan out.” Tony is self-control personified, until his scheme appears to collapse. The scene during which he momentarily loses his composure (subtly but effectively conveyed by Hallahan) is among the play’s most satisfying moments.
If Tony is one-step ahead of everyone else, Sandys’ shrewd, efficient Hubbard seems to be two steps ahead of Tony, making him a most able opponent in Tony’s cat-and-mouse game.
“Dial M for Murder”
4 stars
Location: Northlight Theatre, North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie, (847) 673-6300, northlight.org
Showtimes: 1 and 7:30 p.m. Wednesday; 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday; 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 2:30 p.m. Sunday through Jan. 7
Tickets: $49-$89
Running time: About 2 hours, with intermission
Parking: Free in the adjacent lot
Rating: For teens and older