Baltimore’s Everyman Dials Up the Suspense

metroweekly.com:

Dial M for Murder, which had already extended its run before playing previews to sold-out houses.“It’s so exciting to know that there’s a hunger out there for people to see this play,” says Lancisi, who is directing Jeffrey Hatcher’s new adaptation of the 1952 stage play by Frederick Knott.Most people know Dial M for Murder from Alfred Hitchcock’s famous film adaptation, its images of Grace Kelly struggling against her strangler ingrained in their heads.

But, as Lancisi points out, it was written in the ’50s, set in the ’50s, and society has evolved since Knott’s original story of a jealous husband plotting to kill his adulterous, wealthy wife. “And because Jeffrey Hatcher is both an excellent playwright and adapter — this is our third adaptation of his that we’ve done — he did some things to the story that make it more thrilling and scary than even [the] original.”Refreshing the story with a queer angle, Everyman’s Dial M for Murder also aims to dial up the suspense. “It’s always the moment before something happens that’s scary as hell,” Lancisi says.“It’s almost more about the moment before, and the anticipation, than it is about the actual moment.

Having said that, we have a really amazing fight choreographer who has staged the murder in such a way that people scream. I mean, you know it’s coming, you see it coming.

It comes. And it scares you in ways you didn’t think it was going to scare you.”For Lancisi and company, the scares are undeniably part of the joy of doing a show like Murder.“The whole cast are all company members, and they’ve worked together a bunch of times,” says Lancisi.