ACCOMPLISHED ACCOMPLICE
Rupert Holmes’s Accomplice is the wittiest and most accomplished fooler play since Ira Levin’s Deathtrap. Each time you think you know what is unfolding you find yourself fooled again. As with Deathtrap, I have seen Accomplice more than once, and I still get swept along on a theatrical thrill ride that rivals the twists and turns of a white-knuckle roller coaster. Just as one has to experience the thrill of a coaster for oneself (Magic Mountain, anyone?), so, too, will a simple description of this play fall far short of what audience members will encounter along the way in Holmes’s exquisitely deceptive story line.
The difficulty derives from the fact that there is very little I can divulge without risking giving away some of the surprises that lurk around every turn. As a matter of fact, performances of this play since its 1990 Broadway debut have concluded with a caution to departing audiences to keep silent regarding their resultant discoveries. You just have to see it.
So, if you want to marvel at the cleverness of this genuinely suspenseful play, and would love to share bits and pieces with family and friends, I can only think of one way this can safely be done: Bring them and yourself to Scripps Ranch Theatre, where Accomplice opens this weekend and plays through October 8, 2017. Directed by Jacquelyn Ritz, you will get a sterling cast of local San Diego performers: Kenny Bordieri, Hannah Logan, Tatiana Mac and Charles Peters.
Sure, I can tell you it takes place in Dartmoor, England at the stylish weekend retreat of the affluent Derek and Janet Taylor, and that both adultery and murder are in the air, but why spoil anything? You already know it’s a deft, daffy, complex comedy of terrors, so get ready.
photos by Ken Jacques
Accomplice
Scripps Ranch Theatre
Legler Benbough Theatre on the campus of Alliant International University
9783 Avenue of Nations
Fri and Sat at 8; Sun at 2
ends on October 8, 2017
for tickets, call 858.578.7728 or visit Scripps Ranch Theatre