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'Perfect Crime' is brutally terrible
(by Herb Hammer - September 03, 2009)
THEATER, BY HERB HAMMER
'Perfect Crime' is brutally terrible
Before leaving New York, there is always the urge to see at least one Off Broadway play. With scores to choose from, the choice isn't so hard after all.
"Perfect Crime" has been playing nonstop since 1987, making it the longest continuously running show ever. What keeps it going? Why has "Perfect Crime" been hanging on for all these years? It was time to find out. After seeing this third-rate murder mystery, you can't help being left in a state of wonder.
Playing at the Snapple Theatre in Midtown Manhattan and staring Catherine Russell, who, by the way, has missed only four performances in the show's 27 years, the show trudges on, still filling the seats mostly with half-price ticket holders who picked them up at the booth sitting on Broadway right outside the door.
The play is just pain awful. Catherine Russell overstayed her welcome years ago. Her arm-waving, eye-rolling, overblown performance could have been played at a local community theater. In fact, it was when, in 1994, Lauri Fisher played the part at Chagrin Valley Little Theatre.
Playwright Warren Manzis' conventional one-act murder mystery is intentionally confusing, starting off with gunshots and a falling body. Psychologist Margaret Thorne Brent's husband has been murdered, or has he? He turns up later perfectly fine.
A local detective thinks there's been something funny going on. He turns up every once in a while to interview the widow in an attempt to piece together the murder. He's confused, and so are we, right up to the final curtain.
If you stick to the story and stop wondering why you came to this poorly acted, terribly written bit of claptrap, you might be able to figure it all out.
Trying to figure out what keeps "Perfect Crime" running night after night, year after year is the biggest puzzle of all. There must be an answer. Audiences have left the theater in amazement for years. Some are furious. Most, when writing into the online audience reviews, have simply hated the show.
The Snapple Theatre, though it's in a perfect location on Broadway, right on Times Square, is a disaster. The flat floor and low-slung stage make viewing quite difficult. Audiences doze unless they're kept awake by Catherine Russell's overacting.
But even Miss Russell and the rest of the cast appear to be bored with the whole thing. Miss Russell's long wavy hair might have looked good back in 1987, but now she looks like a matronly woman with a nutty hairdo.
As for the script, forget it. I'm not even sure there was a murder. And if there was, who cares? Audiences show up because the tickets are cheap, and most other shows are selling out at outrageous prices. For $30, they fill the seats, thinking they've got nothing to lose. Well, there is something to lose, some precious time that could be spent somewhere else in this wonderful city.
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