What starts out as a routine job interview quickly turns into a matter of life and death when a construction firm exec finds himself with a gun to his head in Gabriel Oliva’s Final Interview, an edge-of-your-seat suspense thriller that more than merits a return engagement following its all too brief five-performance run at the Pico.

Oliva stars as “mildly nerdy” Clayton Hill, who’s come seeing a position at Herber Matthews, “the unstoppable juggernaut of construction firms,” from VP of Development Charles Gibson (Brian Stanton).

Though Clayton’s interview starts out breezily enough, things get serious when Charles asks him why he hasn’t put his Master’s degree to better use, only having worked as an assistant engineer, to which Clayton responds that he’s “never felt motivated until recently” when a new-found “purpose” convinced him of the need to “make an impact.”

Clayton’s greatest strength? “I do my research.”

Where he sees himself in five years? “In another world.”

“What matters,” he tells his interviewer, “is you Charles and me Clayton here in this room, right now in this moment.”

Cryptic responses, and perhaps innocuous, but Charles has no intention finding out what’s behind them since as far as he’s concerned, the interview with this weirdo is over almost as soon as it started.

Clayton then reveals what he hopes will convince Charles to give him five more minutes, to wit, the former’s talent at finding “hidden details in ordinance mandates” that could save the firm “minimum ten percent, maybe even twenty.”

“Everyone says that we have to build within these standard parameters,” Clayton explains, “but they’re not willing to take a risk once in a while. You know?”

A sudden phone call has Charles apologetically informing his interviewee of the need to be on his way, upon which the latter poses a single question: “Gun to your head: what’s your biggest mistake?”

And when Charles makes a move to exit, Clayton turns this question from hypothetical to life-and-death real by pulling out a pistol from his messenger bag and pointing it straight at Charles’ head.

What follows is a nail-biting game of cat and mouse guaranteed to keep an audience on the edge of their seats, not only wondering what will happen next but also what could possibly have motivated Clayton to show up at Charles’ soundproofed office with murder on his mind, and just what he meant when he said he expected to be “in another world” in five years’ time. Did he perhaps mean in five minutes’ time?

Like Alfred Hitchcock in his heyday, playwright Oliva knows how to mix laughter and dramatic tension to invigorating effect, and under Katierose Donohue Enriquez’s razor-sharp direction, he and Stanton deliver a pair of matching star turns that held me spellbound, and never more so than when the play’s final minutes have Oliva digging deep into Clayton’s despair and Stanton into Charles’ abject terror at the imminent likelihood of a bullet to his head.

Dana DeRuyck completes the onstage cast in a niftily rendered cameo as Charles’ secretary Tessa, with Frank Martinelli and Colleen Foy lending their topnotch voice talents to the mix.

Annie Terrazo works scenic design magic simply by painting a teal rectangle on The Pico’s black brick upstage wall, hanging a few stylish paintings, setting out a few pieces of office furniture atop a muted-hued area rug to give Final Interview a top-of-the-line-looking set.

Helton Najera’s all-around striking lighting design masterfully ups the suspense in one particularly key moment by gradually turning a “wide shot” into a “closeup” without a camera in the room.

Final Interview is presented by Go Theatrics. Ken Werther is publicist.

There’s talk of bringing Oliva’s play back to the Pico, there are plans to turn it into a movie, and as far as I’m concerned, regional theaters ought to jump at the chance to add it to an upcoming season.

Simply put, Gabriel Oliva’s Final Interview gives stage thriller classics like Frederick Knott’s Wait Until Dark and Dial M for Murder and Ira Levin’s Deathtrap a riveting run for their money.

The Pico, 10508 West Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles.

–Steven Stanley
January 29, 2023
Photos: Eric Wann

Tags: Gabriel Oliva, Los Angeles Theater Review, The Pico