With less than two weeks to learn his lines, local actor Jason Steele proved to be a quick study.
He handily stepped into a lead role in Deadly Murder, which opened Thursday night at the Quality Inn North Hill dinner theatre, and delivered what was ultimately a riveting performance.
Steele, who took over the role of Billy in a pinch after the previous actor dropped out of the Central Alberta Theatre production, is a veteran of CAT (memorably playing the Chief in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) and Against the Wall Theatre.
In Deadly Murder, he not only had to learn a third of the play’s lines, but managed to pull off the personality shift needed for the portrayal of a character who, the audience soon learns, is pretending to be someone he’s not.
Actually none of the three characters in this entertaining thriller by David Foley are as they initially appear — which is part of the fun of this smartly scripted play, which was nominated for a 2008 Edgar Award.
When we first see the handsome young waiter Billy, he’s just bedded a rich older jewelry designer and is strolling around her luxurious apartment dressed only in a towel — examining her valuables.
The designer Camille, played by Nicole Orr, catches him in the act and becomes wary enough of his motives to be anxious to get rid of him.
When Billy refuses to leave, Camille is forced to call in her security guard, Ted, depicted by Perry Mill.
What happens next involves a series of surprises, double-crosses, struggles and, eventually, a murder. But who gets killed is part of the mystery, so it’ll do no good to give away more of the convoluted plot line.
What can be said is this play becomes completely engrossing in the second half, but had a rocky start when viewed during Tuesday night’s preview.
Early exchanges between Billy and Camille seemed more like recitation than conversation.
Billy flat-lined his dialogue with a sing-songy nasal Mid-West accent. Camille came across as so brittle even her jokes were lost on the audience.
The very fact these two were supposed to have just had sex was unbelievable because of the lack of flirtatious behaviour on both their parts.
But holy turnaround!
Whatever pepped the actors up during intermission worked like gang-busters. From the halfway point on, Deadly Murder was a hold-onto-your-seats thrill ride.
The twists and turns kept coming, and the talented cast captured the intensity of people caught in an ever-shifting, life-or-death scenario.
Director Sherry Ainscough delivered the kind of pressure-cooker pacing needed for the tense second act and the audience became completely absorbed in the interesting back story of these grasping characters.
If the cast of Deadly Murder can make the first act as thrilling as the second (and I’m betting they can, once opening jitters are calmed) this will be a heck of an evening’s entertainment.
Hats off to set designers Stuart Reid and Bob Alspach and lighting designer Matt Levesque for creating an appropriately posh, yet darkly forbidding environment.
The thriller continues to Feb. 7.
lmichelin@www.reddeeradvocate.com