Last Thursday, Mer and I had our friend and colleague Brandon over for supper, which was a quick bite of homemade pizza. We then jumped in the car and headed up to the Hanna Theater in the Cleveland Playhouse complex in Cleveland. We were there to see the comedy/thriller Deathtrap, but we had the added bonus of being there on an evening where there was a pre-show talk with one of the five actors. Brandon is heavily involved in the (CVCA) Royal Theater, so he was eager to hear from a cast member, and both Mer and I enjoy that sort of thing, so we made a point to get there as close to 6:30 as we could to hear the talk (the show itself was at 7:30).

The talk was excellent. The actress was open and friendly, and we got front-row seats (we have never quite figured out why people avoid front seats). Mostly, the questions were asked by a member of the Hanna Theater staff, but some audience questions were asked as well. I remember we found out the Hanna teams with theaters in a couple different states, so this woman’s home theater is in Idaho, and Deathtrap will be playing there this summer. She had to try to learn a Dutch accent for her role, and she said it was quite difficult. She also said the rehearsal time was relatively short, so she tried to have her lines memorized by the time rehearsals started.

After the talk, we found our seats, and the play started at 7:30. The set was extensive and detailed. The entire play takes place in one large lodge-style room, so the set did not have to be mobile at all. The set was one large room, but had a hallway at the back, a staircase, a sliding glass door, giant barn-style doors, and lots of old weapons mounted on the walls as decor. The room serves as the writing room of a murder-thriller playwright, and he has had a multi-year drought from being able to write anything. He married rich, but still they are almost out of money when he gets a manuscript from a young playwright, and the play is excellent. The older playwright invites the younger one to come up to his house for the evening so they can edit the script, and he contemplates murdering the young man and stealing the script. What unfolds after that is an amazing series of twists and turns, with some humor sprinkled in along the way. I won’t ruin the ending, or even the middle of the first act. As I said, there were a ton of twists.

The acting was excellent, as I have come to expect from Great Lakes Theater. Our seats were quite good, although there really are no bad seats in the Hanna theater. We did not get home and to bed until about 11:00, but it was a fun evening out with a good friend, and so was quite worth getting a tad short-changed on sleep.