STAGE REVIEWS : Playhouse Pulls Off a Whodunit Born of TV

The usual connection between the stage and Hollywood develops something like this: A play makes a lot of noise as a commercial success and its producers, picking up the scent of money, buy the rights to turn it into a movie. There are plenty of recent examples, from “The Little Shop of Horrors” to “Children of a Lesser God.”

But “Rehearsal for Murder” took the reverse route. Co-writers Richard Levinson and William Link, known for such TV series as “Columbo” and “Murder, She Wrote,” created the mystery for the small screen, and the show came out in 1982 as a CBS-TV movie starring Lynn Redgrave and Robert Preston.

TV critics liked it and so did playwright D.D. Brooke, who saw its potential as an ongoing hit on the drama circuit, especially regional little theaters that often pad their seasons with at least one whodunit. Brooke took the red herring-rich Levinson/Link teleplay and molded it into a somewhat tighter, but no-less-teasing stage vehicle.

The result is a murder mystery that, because of its well-defined plotting and characters, is both intriguing and entertaining. It was fun on TV, and it’s fun at the Huntington Beach Playhouse, where director Darlene Hunter-Chaffee lets everything unfold without dawdling.

“Rehearsal for Murder” opens with Alex Dennison, a successful playwright, facing a darkened theater. He shows the audience a revolver. He then tells the stagehand that there will be a reading of his new play (which just happens to be a murder mystery) that night. He mournfully mentions a funeral that took place a year earlier.

Then we are in a flashback of a year ago, as Alex tries to comfort Monica, his fiancee and leading lady in a play about to open on Broadway. She is racked by opening-night jitters that, it turns out, are justified. After mixed reviews, for both the show and Monica, the production appears doomed. The next thing we know, Alex is asked by police to come to Monica’s apartment. They tell him that she has committed suicide by jumping from a window.

From what, bad press? Alex knows the barbs wouldn’t overstimulate her that much, so he suspects murder. What to do? Write a play that delves into possible motives and get the people closest to Monica, namely the other members of the flop’s cast, to act them out a year later. Maybe the killer will be exposed.

The Huntington Beach Playhouse cast does a good job with all this, but it’s Dick Harris as Alex who consistently shines. The character is as calculating as a math equation but also full of emotion and humor. If we don’t feel his genuine attachment to Monica, then the motivation for this complicated ruse is lost. Harris presents the needed elements.

Harris’ best support comes from Melissa Grant, who handles the challenges presented by Monica and the drama’s clever structure with aplomb. Hunter-Chaffee’s sets are modest, but they squeak by in satisfying the play’s needs.

‘REHEARSAL FOR MURDER’

A Huntington Beach Playhouse production of D.D. Brooke’s mystery from Richard Levinson and William Link’s teleplay. Directed by Darlene Hunter-Chaffee. With Dick Harris, Rick Paap, Patricia McQuinn, Melissa Grant, Guy Maynard, Pattric Walker, Terra Shelman, Donald E. Casados, Bradley Miller, Michael Robert Thiel, Bonnie Homer and Richard Cabin. Set by Hunter-Chaffee. Plays Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. through Feb. 4 at the Gisler Little Theatre, 21141 Strathmoor Lane, Huntington Beach. Tickets: $5-7. (714) 832-1405.