Perfect Murder

Perfect Murder
By Ken Cotterill. Javeenbah Theatre Company Inc, Nerang (Qld). Director: Gillian Crow. 21 Jan – 05 Feb 2011

Moors.  Swirling mists.  Centuries old mansions.  All the setting for a murder-mystery?  Yes.  How about sunny modern Surfers Paradise?  What?!

Perfect Murder was written by Queensland based Ken Cotterill in 1998, but has never been performed in the location of its setting. I wanted to “… show that murder and mayhem can happen in the most unlikely places, like the Gold Coast … I wanted to set the play in a sunny, bright, warm environment,”  Mr Cotterill said. 

 

Perfect Murder is a comedy-murder-mystery. Thriller writer Ben Harris [Stuart Lumsden] and his wife, Joan [Libby Bancroft], have invited their long-standing friends, Tom and Anne Templeton [Trevor Love and Janet Thwaites] to relax with them for a few days at their beachside villa.  Ben has an ulterior motive — he has ‘writers block’ and needs help with the plot for his next book.  All is going well, until Ben divulges some of his latest storyline to Tom and that’s where the mystery deepens as the sand shifts and tensions develop between the characters.

With only a cast of four, long pieces of dialogue are the order of the play; and they were well delivered, indeed (there being only two minor stumbles).

Director Gillian Crow cleverly withheld the last three pages of the script from the cast for quite a number of rehearsals so that they could develop their characters and increase the anticipation before revealing the ending.  Because it is a contemporary play, even the newspaper was that day’s paper.  And why not?

The well lit set (by Colin Crow) wonderfully exemplified a bright, modern-day Gold Coast apartment with tiled floor, pale painted walls and small groups of foreign artifacts hanging on the walls as a tasteful statement of the owner’s overseas travels.

In short: highly recommended.

Russell E Williams

Images: (Top) Libby Bancroft, Trevor Love,  Janet Thwaites and Stuart Lumsden. (Bottom) Stuart Lumsden. Photographer: Shayne Caddaye.

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