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PTC's 'Murderers'
Dan Rottenberg
Show and tell (mostly tell)
in a gated senior community
DAN ROTTENBERG
While awaiting the undertaker in gated, isolated “Riddle Key, Florida,” what’s a senior citizen to do but watch one’s power evaporate and stew in one’s petty jealousies? That being the case, why not speed the process along (and simultaneously stimulate one’s brain cells) by plotting the demise of one’s perceived tormentors?
Gerald, a middle-aged gold-digger (Brent Langdon), has married his lover’s mother in order to inherit her assets, only to discover that her illness isn’t as terminal as he’d been led to believe. Lucy (Marylouise Burke) perceives a threat to her marriage when her husband’s old flame moves into Riddle Key. Minka (Kristine Nielsen) is a Riddle Key manager who combines her passion for justice with her love of murder mysteries by dispatching residents’ greedy relatives as well as her heartless fellow administrators.
On paper, it sounds like fine material for a relevant social comedy— and Jeffrey Hatcher’s script for Murderers may indeed read well on paper. The problem is the script’s transition to the stage. For Murderers is neither a drama nor a comedy in which people relate to each other; it’s a series of three separate monologues in which three characters gleefully describe their newfound personas as killers. The actors are capable enough, especially Marylouise Burke as an octogenarian pixie who recharges her batteries by plotting an elaborate murder/suicide. But performers can take a play just so far when neither they nor their stories intersect and they’re talking not to each other but to the audience.
Hatcher’s script doesn’t help matters: It’s all salt and very little food. His self-congratulatory dialogue is too witty by half. (Samples: “She looks like Diana Vreeland’s idea of Dr. No”; “It’s like bicycle riding, or sex— which to me is the same thing.”) As I said, it may read better on paper.
As I’ve suggested before, Philadelphia lately has been inundated with one-person plays— and while a one-man play may be a convenient vehicle for control freaks as well as a godsend for producers who want to hold their costs down, it’s no substitute for genuine drama or comedy. (See “A Plague of One-Man Shows,” Feb. 24, 2006,)
I know, I know— Murderers is not a one-person show. It’s three one-person shows. This is not my idea of progress.
in a gated senior community
DAN ROTTENBERG
While awaiting the undertaker in gated, isolated “Riddle Key, Florida,” what’s a senior citizen to do but watch one’s power evaporate and stew in one’s petty jealousies? That being the case, why not speed the process along (and simultaneously stimulate one’s brain cells) by plotting the demise of one’s perceived tormentors?
Gerald, a middle-aged gold-digger (Brent Langdon), has married his lover’s mother in order to inherit her assets, only to discover that her illness isn’t as terminal as he’d been led to believe. Lucy (Marylouise Burke) perceives a threat to her marriage when her husband’s old flame moves into Riddle Key. Minka (Kristine Nielsen) is a Riddle Key manager who combines her passion for justice with her love of murder mysteries by dispatching residents’ greedy relatives as well as her heartless fellow administrators.
On paper, it sounds like fine material for a relevant social comedy— and Jeffrey Hatcher’s script for Murderers may indeed read well on paper. The problem is the script’s transition to the stage. For Murderers is neither a drama nor a comedy in which people relate to each other; it’s a series of three separate monologues in which three characters gleefully describe their newfound personas as killers. The actors are capable enough, especially Marylouise Burke as an octogenarian pixie who recharges her batteries by plotting an elaborate murder/suicide. But performers can take a play just so far when neither they nor their stories intersect and they’re talking not to each other but to the audience.
Hatcher’s script doesn’t help matters: It’s all salt and very little food. His self-congratulatory dialogue is too witty by half. (Samples: “She looks like Diana Vreeland’s idea of Dr. No”; “It’s like bicycle riding, or sex— which to me is the same thing.”) As I said, it may read better on paper.
As I’ve suggested before, Philadelphia lately has been inundated with one-person plays— and while a one-man play may be a convenient vehicle for control freaks as well as a godsend for producers who want to hold their costs down, it’s no substitute for genuine drama or comedy. (See “A Plague of One-Man Shows,” Feb. 24, 2006,)
I know, I know— Murderers is not a one-person show. It’s three one-person shows. This is not my idea of progress.
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