Dial M for Murder

Dial M for Murder at the Jungle Theater proves that this old chestnut, a staple of amateur acting companies, deserves to be retired from the stage once and for all. The play is reasonably entertaining but it goes on too long and the solution to the mystery, something involving nearly identical latch-keys, manages to be at once, dull, trivial, and unconvincing. Your best bet is to watch this film in Hitchcock’s version with Grace Kelly and Ray Milland. At the Jungle Theater, in Bain Boehlke’s production, the actor playing Wendice, the homicidal tennis pro, exactly imitates Ray Milland’s bland, silky delivery, exuding a rather stodgy and pedantic menace – the actor’s parody of Milland’s voice and inflections is so close as to be a bit uncanny. The single set is elaborate in an old-fashioned way – the stage setting and decoration is by that disgraced stalwart of the Minnesota theater scene, John Clarke Donohue. Everything about this production is highly polished, well-acted, and effectively staged – my dispute is with the play itself and not with the manner of its production. The show requires two intermissions, which seem unnecessary in light of the fact that the action all takes place in an upper crust British drawing room, and there’s too much talk, too many drinks poured from glass carafes, too many lines such as “I’ve had a brainwave” (uttered by the Inspector) to redeem the thing from the verbose reveal in its lackluster climax.