I suppose that Dial M For Murder is an appealing show to open Geva's season, but it's an old warhorse and maybe sends the wrong signal for a theater company that has been specializing in reviving meaningful classics and developing new works. I do like Geva's version, which trims and clarifies the original stage-script, adapting it to include some of the excellent filmscript for Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 international hit movie. It's dramatically effective without being quite so stagy.
For instance, it shows us both the people on the phone in the apartment and those talking to them from outside the apartment. In the Broadway play I saw in 1953, speakers let us hear the person on the other end of the phone conversation, but here we see them on another part of the stage and can understand better what they're doing and how they feel when they say those lines.
On Broadway and in the film, John Williams virtually stole the show with his sly, sardonic performance as the inspector, even though his character doesn't show up until the second act. Paul Hebron is persuasive and clever enough in the role but has no such panache, so Ted Deasy restores the balance, playing the lead role of the villainous husband like a matinee idol much in charge.
As his wife, Rachel Fowler is appropriately attractive, initially vulnerable, and then unexpectedly resilient and strong under attack. And Bill Doyle seems sympathetic, helpfully scheming, then genuinely confused as their friend and the wife's secret lover.
But I'm not telling the story with characters' names, because all this nicely played exercise seems to me to be without involving characters. If there is any sexual tension or attraction between the husband and wife, or wife and lover, it seems perfunctory and merely presented, not felt. So the conflicts and plot-elements play out nicely but without much emotion.
Tim Ocel's efficient direction may lack intensity enough to have given me that impression. Or the cast may not have felt the play when I saw them the night after opening night. The physical production is handsome enough. But the only element that seems truly stirring to me, other than the clever, suspense-filled script, is Gregg Coffin's stabbing music connecting and underlining the action.
