Theatre 40 hits a suspense thriller bullseye with Craig Warner’s edge-of-your-seat take on Patricia Highsmith’s dark and twisted page-turner Strangers On A Train.

Like the 1951 Alfred Hitchcock movie classic of the same name, Warner’s stage adaptation starts with the most intriguing of premises.

What if two absolute strangers were to meet by chance and quickly discover that each of them has someone they’d rather see dead than alive?

What if one of them were to say to the other, “I’ll kill for you, you’ll kill for me, and with nothing to connect one of us to the other, the police will be left with two unsolvable crimes.”

How easy would it then be for these Strangers On A Train to formulate a foolproof double murder pact?

This is precisely what wealthy, dissolute playboy Charles Bruno (Michael Mullen) proposes to gifted young architect Guy Haines (Joe Clabby) upon learning that Guy’s promiscuous wife Miriam, pregnant with another man’s child, has no intention of granting her husband the divorce that will allow him to marry the woman he truly loves.

What if Charles were to murder Miriam and, in exchange, Guy were to kill Charles’s father, who refuses to give his galivanting, alcoholic wastrel a cent of the fortune he’s now of age to spend as he wishes?

It’s an indecent proposal Guy can scarcely believe is being made, let alone seriously considered, that is until he learns that Miriam has met her death by strangulation, murderer unknown.

Now all Guy has to do is fulfill his end of the bargain, and with Charles having no intention of disappearing from his new best friend’s life, it’s highly unlikely that Guy’s wife’s killer will settle for anything less than a bullet through his father’s head.

With a premise as intriguing as this, it’s no wonder Highsmith’s novel and Hitchcock’s movie had readers and moviegoers glued to their seats throughout every increasingly shocking plot twist, and the same can be said for Warner’s spiffy stage adaptation, one which sticks closer to the Highsmith original than Hitchcock’s did, yet invents its own humdinger of a climax. (In other words, don’t expect Bruno to get crushed to death by a merry-go-round gone berserk.)

L.A. legend Jules Aaron directs Strangers On A Train with supreme attention to performance and atmosphere, eliciting one pitch-perfect acting turn after another from Theatre 40 veterans and newbies alike.

The chameleon-like Mullen has never been better than he is as Charles Bruno, oozing equal parts charm and smarm in a role made indellible by Robert Walker, and with the lanky, handsome, all-American Clabby doing his own stunning work as the increasingly distraught object of Charles’s obsession, audiences may well find themselves wondering if it’s just Guy’s friendship Charles has a hankering for.

And don’t get me started on Charles’s relationship with his rather too doting mother Elsie (Sharron Shayne showing off both acting chops and silk-stockinged legs), or the way he insinuates himself into Guy and his new bride’s post-honeymoon life, the role of Anne introducing Theatre 40 audiences to the lovely Anica Petrovic, who gives Guy’s second wife equal parts substance and strength.

Larry Eisenberg makes for the craftiest and most relentless of private eyes as ex-police officer Arthur Gerard, with Todd Andrew Ball (Frank Myers) and Michael Kerr (Robert Treacher) completing an all-around topnotch ensemble as two of Guy’s closest colleagues and friends.

Scenic designer Jeff G. Rack makes ingenious use of Theatre 40’s “widescreen” stage to ensure swift transitions from locale to locale, though even without the lengthy scene changes that Rack’s design avoids, Strangers Of A Train could stand some trimming.

Derrick McDaniel’s moody lighting, Mullen’s spot-on 1950s costumes, and Judi Lewin’s matching hair, wig, and makeup designs are terrific too,

Most significantly of all, Nick Foran’s sound design gives Stranger On A Train a cinematic underscoring that ups the suspense every step of the way.

Strangers On A Train is produced by David Hunt Stafford. Paul D. Reid is stage manager. Philip Sokolof is publicist.

A good deal darker and edgier than just about anything I’ve seen on the Theatre 40 stage, and all the more thrilling for pushing the envelope, Strangers On A Train will grab you from the start and never let go.

Theatre 40, 241 S. Moreno Dr., Beverly Hills.
www.Theatre40.org

–Steven Stanley
February 4, 2024
Photos: Eric Keitel

Tags: Craig Waner, Los Angeles Theater Review, Patricia Highsmith, Theatre 40