Fort Lauderdale-based playwright Tony Finstrom is many things: a Carbonell Awards judge (and previous award nominee), a board member for the South Florida International Press Club, a Dramatist’s Guild member. But mostly, he is a scholar of the stage who masters in theater about theater – works such as “Larger-than-Life,” from the Public Theatre in 1996, a triptych of one-act plays about forgotten theater icons; and 2009’s “Knish Alley,” a story about a
Yiddish theater troupe presented at the Broward Stage Stage Door.
His latest work, a vintage-style murder mystery titled “Murder on Gin Lane,” is still in its inchoate stages; it has its world-premiere as a reading this coming Monday night, Oct. 24, at Lynn University’s Wold Performing Arts Center. It will be the first in Jan McArt’s 2011-2012 play reading series, but it’s no ordinary reading: Finstrom and the play’s director, Wayne Rudisill, are presenting “Murder on Gin Lane” as a radio play, complete with sound effects. It’s an ambitious decision that Finstrom and the cast – which includes Jan McArt, Iris Acker, Jeffrey Bruce and Beth Holland – will be fine-tuning all the way up to Monday’s presentation.
Can you give us a basic overview of the plot of “Murder on Gin Lane” without, of course, giving away any crucial information?
A woman’s husband’s has died six months earlier. It was deemed to be a suicide by the coroner, and she’s convinced it wasn’t, and she’s trying to figure out who might have done it. I can’t give away a lot more than that. Part of the puzzle is why is she so adamant about having this be a murder rather than a suicide.
Is having a four-person cast difficult in a murder mystery because it limits the suspects?
Yes, but I think it works fine because all three women turn out to be suspects. You have this inspector from Scotland Yard who’s trying to figure it out, and it’s tough because most murder mysteries have large casts and alibis. Here it’s limited, but it works.
It’s also difficult it is to pull off a successful murder mystery onstage. Yet it seems like in the literature world, there are so many great mystery writers churning out one successful book after another; what accounts for that difference in success rate from book to stage?
It’s hard to be cinematic on a stage. Plays are usually set in one setting or a couple of settings. Certainly books are more adaptable to film, where you can be on the moors or whatever. It’s tougher to pull it off in a one-set play, which is what this is. It’s a very old-fashioned kind of play. It’s the kind of play that almost nobody does here anymore. Everyone’s trying to do edgy new work, and only Broward Stage Door still does these kind of shows.
Everything that I’ve seen from you has been on the lighter side, comedies and musicals. Were you able to be funny in this show?
There’s a lot of humor in it. There’s also a big, dark thunderstorm that a lot of the action goes on in, so hopefully there will be a mix of laughs and thrills.
What made you decide to go the extra step and add the radio effects?
Jan McArt has this reading series at Lynn, and the director has worked with her before. I was told that this audience expects more than just a reading; we can’t have the actors just sitting in a semicircle and reading. They want more of a show. We thought, “What can we do to flesh this out and make it a full performance?” Instead of reading stage direction, we can have stage effects, sound effects, etc. We don’t have to say them; we can have them. I think it will work really well and feel more like a full performance.
How were you able to lure Jan McArt out of retirement, or semiretirement, and back onto the stage?
I’m amazed; I don’t think she thinks she’s ever been retired. I’ve never followed what’s been going on at Lynn; I know she has performed there in a cabaret setup with a piano player. She was eager to get involved with Iris Acker, who’s an old friend of hers and who said she’d be perfect here. They all came over to my apartment and sat down and read it. At the end of the play, all the actors were shocked at the conclusion. They didn’t know who had done it. Jan thought, well, let’s read this at my reading series at Lynn. This has all been done in about the last month and a half.
Do you want to eventually see this as a full-fledged production?
Yes, and I’m afraid it will get lost as a radio play. People will come to the reading and think of it as a radio play. It was mean it to be a regular full play, and now I don’t know how it will come off to someone like Clive [Cholerton, of the Caldwell), who may think of it as a radio play.
“Murder on Gin Lane” will be at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Lynn University’s Wold Center, 3601 N. Military Trail, Boca Raton. Tickets are $10. Call 561/237-9000 or visit lynn.edu/tickets.
