Thriller doesn't disappoint

St. Albert Theatre Troupe’s newest spring production, The Spider Or the Fly, is similar to a Vegas shell game.

You know it’s a con. But you get sucked in and are completely mesmerized.

American playwright Sam Bobrick, a master at misdirection, uses a series of broad strokes to set up what appears to be fairly innocent story. Two jurors, Maura and Scott, are serving at the murder trial of a man charged with bashing his wife’s head with a brick.

The two jurors share a couple of dates and what starts off as a romantic possibility rapidly devolves into a dangerous game of obsession in which nothing is as it first appears.

Bobrick has structured the psychological thriller much like a road peppered with U-turns and roundabouts. Although the traffic flows at a designated pace, the viewer gets continually thrown off balance at the slightest tilt.

Director Louise Large deftly steers the pace, speeding up and braking to get the most out of a surreal plot that at times deliberately leaves the audience perplexed, on edge and uncomfortable.

The two romantic leads, Maura and Scott, are opposite ends of the spectrum. The pair exists in a state of constant irritation with each other. Maura stubbornly believes the defendant is guilty. Scott is equally obstinate in casting his vote for innocence.

They constantly chafe at each other and as the romance shifts from amour to possession, their relationship morphs into a purgatory of arguments.

Throughout the barely-suppressed tensions, Adam Keefe is Scott, a man who likes to dominate women. He skilfully transitions from a charming, wise-ass stock analyst to a predator who is prone to volcanic eruptions of anger.

A veteran thespian, Keefe delivers the ultimate brash jerk, a man whose actions make you squirm – moreso because you realize it’s part of the human condition.

In a parallel growth, Christine Lesiak’s Maura shifts from a prim, vulnerable woman to a psychopathic creature who is completely at ease firing her own brand of shrapnel.

Lesiak commands an electric energy that keeps eyes glued to her every movement. Yet it is her broad toolkit of emotions and subtle nuances that ultimately give her character a paralyzing depth.

There are two other younger characters that coexist in the same space but in different time frames. Jan (Krista Skwarok) and Tom (Julian Stamer) have an unorthodox relationship that cleverly ties into the murder. To reveal it would be a spoiler.

One script weakness is that Jan and Tom are less fleshed out than their counterparts. Yet this younger couple is pivotal to the big reveal.

Despite the script’s limitations, Skwarok has developed a starry-eyed young girl in search of friendship while Stamer has created an alternative – at times creepy –man with a controlling vision of life. Both actors have fewer lines to work with, but their awkward moments of social interaction are priceless.

Kudos to Large for creating a set and costume palette of whites, blacks and greys – colours of coldness, suppression and menace that float throughout the play.

In this psychological thriller, the major theme is that people live in a society in which no one knows each other. But far from being heavy, Bobrick appears to just entertain and make people feel good.

The last night of The Spider Or the Fly’s three-day run is Saturday at 8 p.m.