Season opener : SecondStage presents dark comedy about art and death

By Ashley Batchelor

Posted: August 14, 2009 at 5:29 a.m.

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ROGERS — little fright can be fun, especially when tons of laughs ensue.

"Art of Murder," a murdermystery play with a large dose of comedy, starts tonight at the Victory Theater in Rogers. It is the first play in the SecondStage season and will run at the theater this weekend.

Written by playwright Joe DiPietro, the play's premise involves a married couple who devise a plot to kill the husband's art dealer. The entire play takes place during one evening at the couple's home in Connecticut. The husband, Jack, portrayed by Rick Laughlin, is a domineering man who thinks he is the world's greatest artist. In reality, though, he does not have much talent, said Kaye Cotton, who is co-directing the play with Rick Pierson.

Jack feels that he has been wronged by his art dealer, Vincent, played by Pierson, because he has taken a long time to sell Jack's artwork. The couple have invited him over for dinner to persuade him to sell Jack's latest painting for $1 million. If the art dealer refuses, the duo have a murder plot ready to pursue, Cotton said.

Jack does not know that his wife, Annie, may back out of the scheme, though. Annie, played by Kristen Begneaud, is a former art student who has been manipulated and controlled by her husband formany years. She wants to get her paintings shown, but Jack persuades her to put his name on her paintings because he has a name in the art world, Cotton said.

Annie has hidden her resentment for her husband from everyone for many years. However, the discontent starts to show as the play unfolds, and she decides she doesn'twant to go along with masking her identity for her paintings any longer, Cotton said.

The Irish maid, played by Pais Raynor, has a large role in how the plot plays out, she said.

Cotton said the twists and turns of the play will keep the audience guessing what will happen next.

"There's about four times [when] the audience is going to 'Aha!'," she said.

These plays are typically more focused on special effects such as lighting and sound instead of actual walls and furniture. The set is very minimal with doors, a basic wall structure, a sofa and an artist area with an easel, Cotton said.

"The audience's imagination fillsin a lot of the gaps," she said.

The play does not include dinner, which is the norm for Rogers Little Theater productions, but Cotton said that the theater was able to keep the ticket prices down since a lot of money didn't have to be spent on costumes and sets.

"It's a real quick, fast-paced kind of show," she said.

The play lasts about 90 minutes and is recommended for adults and children over the age of 10. Cotton is convinced that when the play is over, the entire audience will end up leaving the theater laughing, she said.

SecondStage productions are more geared for an adult audience and are usually edgier than the main stage plays, Cotton said.However, "Art of Murder" is different because it is a comedy.

Cotton said Pierson decided to act in the play because he could not find the right fit for the art dealer character named Vincent, so he decided to step into the role himself. He asked Cotton to move up from the assistantdirector position to director, and she agreed after persuading him to stay on as co-director instead of simply acting in the play, she said. Cotton said that every director has a vision of how the set should look, but "you have to put your heads together when you're co-directing."

Entertainment, Pages 16, 26 on 08/14/2009

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