Based on the psychological thriller written by Patricia Highsmith in 1950, Craig Warner’s Strangers on a Train poses a fascinating question— what do we confide in people when we think there are no consequences? What follows is a rapidly escalating story filled with murder and psychopathy as two men push themselves and each other to a breaking point. While exciting and filled with large performances, the urge to force the dominos to fall causes the show to lose a strong thematic or aesthetic focus. The published synopsis lauds that the play “starts with a bang and races on like a runaway train.” If only it took a moment, especially at the start, to step on the brakes.
We meet Charles Bruno (Roy Wallace-Cant) and Guy Hains (Hamish MacDonald) as they meet each other on a train into rural Queensland. Charles is a trust fund baby who jokes he is employed as a “thinker.” Guy is an accomplished architect on his way to oversee the construction of a resort.
The train they are on is supposed to represent a period of limbo and transition in the lives of both characters. Charlie confides in Bruno that he hates his father for controlling his financial destiny and manages after some effort to get Guy to admit his wife Mirium has been cheating on him their entire marriage. The set struggles to match the tone and heaviness of the dialogue. The carriage is built from black office chairs and white bar stools, all very new. This cleanliness was perhaps intended to wipe the slate for Guy and Charlie’s honest discussion, but the lack of physical wear and tear in the set meant the scene felt ethereal.
That disconnect in pacing became a recurring character for the play’s opening stages. What could have been an intimate conversation that was slow and subtle, moved too quickly. Just five minutes after Charlie teases out Guy’s material problems, “you will never see me again…you can say whatever you want,” he is already suggesting a double murder. The desire to create the “perfect crime” and Charlie’s obsession with murder comes off as forced and contrived. He insults Mirium as someone who needs to be “put out” when he and the audience have never seen her. Guy himself even says “I don’t have murder in me” before signing off on the plan with the strangely comedic clinking of glasses.
When they leave the train to the sound of suspenseful music, the audience is left confused. Were both men serious? Did Guy actually agree to the plan? The desire to move the plot along at a thriller pace eroded the slow burn required to stage the horrific events to follow.
Wallace-Cant’s performance of Charlie’s was exemplary in execution but failed to create sympathy across the play. His Freudian relationship with his mother Elsa (Jane Wallace) is positioned to explain Charlie’s lack of empathy and damaged sense of self. “I am the only woman who will ever really love you,” she tells him early on after he creepily hugs her while exclaiming “you have the best legs out of any woman in the world.” Their inappropriate chemistry was visceral and made some audience members shuffle in their seats, however, to achieve this impact there could be no cracks in Charlie’s devotion. If the intention was to garner sympathy for his actions, the show may have overplayed its hand.
The bulk of the play revolves around the murders of Mirium and Charlie’s father. The planning and execution of Miriums’s murder is never shown on stage. Guy finds out by letter that his wife is dead. The lack of foreshadowing and setup undermines the shock that letter is supposed to cause. We never hear her voice, nor do we ever see Guy show her hate or love. The lack of established connection means Mirium’s murder becomes a missed dramaturgical opportunity; an exciting plot point that struggles to resonate.
In sharp contrast, Charlie’s near constant tormenting of Guy to live up to his end of the bargain and kill his father is successfully eerie. Charlie tortures Guy with daily letters containing detailed information on how the murder should be done while subtly threatening him that he will expose his role in his own wife’s murder to his new fiancé Anne (Rachele Edson). Wallace-Cant’s serial killer rendition of Charlie hits in stride as he becomes obsessive in an attempt to control Guy’s mind. His words, “I never miss a day,” ring in Guy’s ears on stage. The blinds built into the set allow Charlie to watch as Guy crawls through letters.
The skilful stage chemistry between Guy and Anne further pulls the audience further into Guy’s internal battle over a murder he never wanted to commit. Unlike Charlie who does not seem to change, we see Guy start to crumble under the weight of secrets no one else can know. We witness how it impacts Anne’s ability to trust herself and her own feelings for him. Unlike the murder of his wife, the scenes of torment and set up made this murder and the aftermath believable— the audience is positioned to hate what Guy is doing but feel it’s inevitable.
While private investigator Frank Myers (Krishae Senthuran) starts putting pressure on both men by finding the links between the murders, the way the evidence unfolds is too predictable and contrived to create suspense on its own. Charlie himself makes the case for Myers by showing up to Guy’s wedding and then his house. The investigation is never an active one but just a background plot force which makes progress in a step-by-step manner.
The tension within Guy and Anne’s testing relationship carries the play until the end. At one point Only at the end does Anne find out who Charlie is or what Guy has done. That dramatic irony heightens every conversation they have and surfaces every time he refuses to make eye contact or turns away. The way she lies for, protests, and consoles him all feel real because she does not know and would never believe him capable of murder.
Guy’s decline comes to a head when he tells Anne he has taken a position in an architecture firm where “you sit down and do the job.” Across we play we hear tidbits about the beautiful projects Guy has designed and built himself. We are told about his childhood dreams to build large bridges. When Anne presses him about his choice he can only say “I don’t have it anymore.”
During intermission, an audience member jokingly asked the person sitting next to them “is this play meant to be funny?” That comment is symbolic of a production that never quite found its genre. The fast pace and sometimes exaggerated performances aligned the play with comedic murder mysteries like Pink Panther. At other points, the intense psychological battles reminded me more of The Silence of the Lambs. Whether the two men’s lives intertwining together was truly opportunistic is never resolved. The characters are left at the end to live their lives in a limbo similar to Guy and Charlie’s meeting on the train— lacking a reference point for what occurred to them on stage.
Strangers on a Train is playing at the Genesian Theatre until April 20, 2024.
