*For full disclosure, I worked as the dramaturg for this production.*

Frederick Knott’s Dial “M” for Murder is a noir mystery in the style of Agatha Christie, a murder plot which hinges on a tiny clue that leads to the unraveling of an almost perfect crime. It has had many lives—as a BBC television production, a Hitchcock film, a stage play in London, and in almost continuous performance since the 1960s. The State College Community Theatre did an admirable job with their production.

The story is set in the London flat of Tony Wendice and his wife Margot, a moderately wealthy socialite. When the play opens, Margot is with Max Halliday, an American crime TV writer. They had an affair one year earlier, before he left London, but now he’s returned. Having discovered the affair by finding a letter from Max to his wife, Tony has been slowly developing the perfect way to murder Margot and get away with it. He enlists the help of Charles Swann (AKA Captain Lesgate and several other names), a small-time con man who was a few years ahead of him at Cambridge. Tony meticulously walks Swann through the murder plan—which involves Tony leaving a key under the mat when he and Max go to a party, then Swann entering the house, Tony calling so that Margot will come into the room where Swann will kill her, then staging a fake robbery—then offers Swann £1,000 for the murder. Swann agrees. The plan goes awry when Margot kills Swann with a pair of scissors. Tony rushes home to remove any evidence that might incriminate him as well as planting the stolen love letter on Swann’s body before calling the police. He takes the housekey from Swann’s pocket and puts it in Margot’s handbag. The police arrive and Inspector Hubbard’s suspicions are aroused by inconsistencies, leading him to believe that Margot let Swann into the apartment and then killed him for blackmailing her. Margot is arrested, convicted, and loses her appeal. The day before Margot’s execution, Max tries to convince Tony to tell the police he hired Swann to kill Margot. Ironically, the story Max has made up (based on his years writing crime TV) is virtually identical to Tony’s actual plan, but Tony argues that no one would believe such a story. Hubbard returns, investigating a recent robbery and asks about Tony spending a lot of single pound notes. Hubbard lays a trap by switching raincoats with Tony (thereby getting Tony’s housekey) sending him to the police station. Hubbard returns using the key from Tony’s raincoat, then Max, also suspicious, breaks into the apartment. Shortly afterwards Margot is delivered by a policeman. Hubbard reveals that the key in Margot’s handbag (which Tony picked up from the police station) is actually the key to Swann’s flat. Swann had put the key to the Wendice flat back under the mat where Tony hid it, and Tony took Swann’s own key out of the dead man’s pocket and put it in Margot’s bag. Tony unsuccessfully tries to open the lock with Swann’s key, then when he takes the other key out from under the mat to open the door, Hubbard’s suspicions are confirmed, Margot is exonerated, and Tony is arrested.

What really made the SCCT production was Rob Burns’ fantastic performance as Tony Wendice. It’s a challenging role, and he managed to bring the perfect blend of sophistication, sadism, cool calculation, and callous brutality to make the role convincing as a noir villain. Part of the challenge of Tony is that he is such a complex figure, who needs to hide his real motives and hatred whenever he’s dealing with Margot, Max and/or Hubbard, which Burns did really well, while still maintaining the edgy hint of violence just below the surface. For instance, there’s a quick reference to Margot and Tony taking Max site seeing at the Tower of London—a place renowned for its association with torture and death, but also a famous tourist attraction. Burns’ inflection as he made that suggestion walked a perfect line between jovial tourism suggestion and menacing threat.

The other performers were generally strong as well. Stefanie Austin’s performance as Margot was dynamic, shifting between anxiety about her volatile husband, happiness with the current state of her marriage, and confusion as Hubbard (Eric Zeigler) shifts his suspicions to her. Mason Keeler (Max Halliday) started out a bit rocky in the early scenes, but as his suspicions of Tony grew, he became much more natural and forceful. Eric Ziegler (Hubbard) brought a contemplative suspicion to the detective, which seemed a very natural attitude for the character.

The only place the show lagged was in the final scene, when Hubbard is explaining to Margot and Max how he deduced the means to prove Tony’s guilt. The pacing seemed slow for a big reveal type scene, but not in a deliberate way to build tension. Rather, it seemed like the actors—Ziegler in particular—were struggling to remember lines or whose line came next. That was a bit of a let down, but it was also only a problem for a brief portion of the show.