Passions, poisons, and heavy petting

When the house lights came on at the end of Wednesday's dress rehearsal of Accomplice, director Daniel Dinero, JE '99, ran up to me at the center of the cozy Nick Chapel audience. He begged me not to reveal the plot—a labyrinth of funny, bizarre, and occasionally ridiculous twists and turns. "Give it a good or a bad review—I don't care," Dinero said. "Just don't reveal the plot."

It was obvious why he was so concerned—from beginning to end, surprise is the essence of Accomplice. Once you think you've arrived somewhere, everything turns on its head and nothing is as it seemed. Knowing the next twist would ruin everything.

In many ways, the wild plot is both the play's chief strength and its primary weakness. The chaotic action is hilarious, but twists occur so frequently that they become too predictable by the end.

The play opens along the lines of Deathtrap, as a hateful woman tries to lure her annoying husband into drinking a poisoned cocktail. Moments later, people are not who they seem, and the dramatic contortions begin. Following intermission, the story really goes over the top. Ludicrous developments keep piling up, and after a while we're definitely not in Kansas anymore.

Thankfully, under Dinero's direction, the strong cast moves gracefully into this increasingly bizarre world without letting down its guard. While simple melodrama works best at first, the later developments require ample doses of slapstick and exaggeration. Despite the improbability and tiredness of several late plot twists, the second act is actually better than the first, mostly because the ensemble does comedy so much better than drama.

Sex and murder are inextricably linked in Accomplice. Two Branford freshmen—Lisa Barrett and Michael Ellis—indulge in some gratuitous French kissing in the first act. They eventually have sex onstage under a red blanket, much to the audience's amusement. In the second act, Tracy Appleton, JE '01, an Elizabeth Berkeley protégé, removes a trench coat to reveal a scanty Victoria's Secret ensemble. The striptease is perfectly silly and erotically suspenseful at the same time.

The best part of Dinero's Accomplice is watching the cast and crew delight in conspiring to trick the audience. I don't take the view that this trickery amounts to cruel manipulation. In fact, I really enjoyed being tricked. Combined with the improbability of the later scenes, the cast's wholehearted commitment to the ruse makes for a wonderful show.

Joe Zanetti, JE '99, shows particular comedic talent, and avoids the painfully muddled British dialect of his fellow cast members. He brings evocative physicality and fluid comic timing to his character. Barrett takes sarcasm and meanness to new highs. Ellis plays a cool, bumbling gentleman. Appleton does a great job portraying a chick with nothing going for her but a shapely body. But while Zanetti brings something new to each of the several characters he plays, the other actors remain static in their roles.

Despite the always-impending threat of murder and death, the suspense is never horrific, only comic. Special effects play an important role in the show—trips to Home Depot paid off. The lighting and sound were also solid and often funny. And a note to the tech crew: get some lighters without the annoying (and malfunctioning) safety tabs.

When Accomplice appeared on Broadway in 1990, it survived for only 52 regular performances and 23 previews. Complimentary tickets or comps, a sure sign of failure, were so abundant that the show eventually took on the nickname "a comp list."

The Yale Accomplice should fare much better. It's a breathless romp, as they say in the biz, and unless someone tips you off, the wildly unpredictable plot should be great fun—if only because the cast seems to enjoy it so much.

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