A Word In Edgewise: Phone’s Ringing…Someone’s Dialed “M”

Playwright Frederick Knott was once described as a “reluctant writer.” Many writers are. But one must cede Knott was a successful reluctant writer, two of three efforts include Wait Until Dark and the hardy evergreen Dial M for Murder, playing nail-bitingly at the Guthrie.

Pondering differences between “Detective” mystery and “Thriller,” one may posit that the first may shock or horrify you, but you’re following a sleuth or detective you know will survive to nail the murderer. The second will shock or horrify you and immerse you in the action. You’ll know who-dunnit or who-will-do-it, but not whether they’ll pay. The emotion churns in your tummy to the finish. 

Dial M for Murder now qualifies for “Chestnut” and one may know the ending through hearsay or Hitchcock’s Ray Milland/Grace Kelly film classic. And yet, even aware, here you are in your comfy seat, surrounded by a full house of theatergoers and you still keep wanting to yell, “Look out! He’s going to kill you!” You already know the ending, why is your stomach clenching? 

Knott’s play opened in 1952, and king of the stomach-clench and Master of Misdirection Alfred Hitchcock had his Dial M version in the can and on the screen by 1954. Hitch knew “Thriller” when he saw it. 

Jeffrey Hatcher’s adaptation premiered July 2022, at San Diego’s The Old Globe. Other than trimming and tightening some of some lengthy exposition, modernizing some idiom, the San Diego Union-Tribune noted the lover’s gender change–Mark to Maxine­– and that husband Tony’s no longer a retired tennis pro, but a failed writer working as Maxine’s book publicist. Wife Margot is now more complex, less “housewife.” Still retained were, as here, 1950s London setting and chic flat. 

No need really to tinker with the basics: according to mystery author and death expert Maxine, there are only five motives for murder: “Money, Fear, Jealousy, Revenge, Desire to protect someone you love.”  No need to tinker indeed–they’re all here from Knott’s original, as shiny and toxic as they were in 1952–AD or BCE, and, like Polonius, we’re all here behind the arras, absorbing every blow.

The single set contains all the information we’ll need; drinks cart, desk and corded telephone (no smart ones then), couch in front of a table bearing framed photographs, a sewing basket and its contents, a frequently used coat rack as the characters come and go, a briefcase and a hidden cane. Nothing gaudy or crowded, nearly every object more a working piece than decorative frill or furbelow. (Kudos to the staging and props folk, and to the actors who internalized every step and measure of the dance).

Husband Tony ((David Andrew MacDonald): sleek graying locks, smooth, urbane­–a more highly evolved, lethal Ted Baxter– coopts Lesgate (Peter Christian Hansen) as his catspaw through blackmail stick and £5,000 carrot. Tony’s candid: “I married for money, quite deliberately.” But, having seen wife Margot (Gretchen Egolf) in the arms of Maxine (Lori Vega) he’s angry, her murder and her money will soothe. To Lesgate’s “Why?” Tony explains, “Malice.”   

There’s lots more, of course, as the plot twists and prop-legerdemain dazzles. Inspector Hubbard (Brian Thomas Abraham) a more pragmatic Poirot who’s not keen on Margot and Maxine’s predilections, arrives on the scene. Will stomachs un-clench? 

High fives for a fine production, one for each murder motive one for each member of this sterling cast. 

On the Guthrie’s Wurtele Thrust Stage through February 25.