At Bay Street Theater, bourbon glasses bear tell-tale fingerprints and lipstick traces. A husband and wife and her lover, in evening attire, converse in a London living room, the décor like the players, impeccably soignee. Murder scenarios foreshadow events to come. This is the opening of Dial M for Murder, adapted from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 movie, from Frederick Knott’s original script and play. Jeffrey Hatcher’s version raises the stakes, making the husband a would-be writer turned PR guy in publishing, promoting the lover’s new murder mystery.
As Margot, the socialite wife, Mamie Gummer is sublime, elegantly slim, vulnerable yet capable of anything. It’s Grace Kelly’s part in Hitchcock’s masterpiece. Her husband, Tony (Erich Bergen) suspects she’s having an affair. “The other woman,” Maxine, (Rosa Gilmore) is smart, challenging to Tony. As in the classic, he’s bent on murder. Under Walter Bobbie’s superb direction, the twists keep coming: Is it jealousy or simply the money?
Enter Lesgate (Max Gordon Moore), down on his luck. Is he a murderer for hire, or a convenient body? This being a period thriller, a black telephone with rotary dial is a character more than a prop. By Act II, Inspector Hubbard (Reg Rogers) with wind swept hair commands the stage in a trench coat, a hilarious bespectacled vision reminiscent of Groucho Marx.
After the opening performance, the actors mixed with the happy audience in Bay Street’s lobby. Gummer greeted fans, posing for selfies. She and her actor sisters Grace and Louisa will do a staged reading of Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters where they grew up in the Berkshires, "my idea of Heaven," she told me. And Reg Rogers, his hair still standing, liked the Groucho comparison. Having gone to school with his grandsons, he said, he actually met him—adding, much to Groucho’s dismay. Someone should make a Groucho movie with Reg Rogers starring.
Meantime, great theater at Bay Street is back, with Steve Guttenberg’s Tales from the Guttenberg Bible next on the intimate summer stage. Sag Harbor’s July 4th fireworks on the long wharf echoed the excitement with dramatic flair.
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