By David A. Sargent,Special to the Sun Journal

LEWISTON – The Public Theatre opens its 15th season with “Deathtrap,” a killer production packed with mayhem, suspense, pulse-pounding surprises and plenty of comedy for good measure.

This Broadway hit from 1978 is the perfect vehicle to showcase the special qualities a professional theater must deliver. All five cast members give fine performances. But director Christopher Schario, the theater’s artistic director, also makes sure many other essential elements work flawlessly.

“Deathrap” is filled with delicious deceit. Just when wonderfully witty dialogue has everyone chuckling along, the flip-flop plot sends audience members off in a whole new direction. Sometimes that new direction is straight up out of their seats with a heart-stopping twist that everyone knows is coming. Even so, the shocks are real, and they’re administered very convincingly.

Outstanding performances are turned in by John Michalski as Sidney Bruhl, a constantly plotting playwright, and Michael Frederic as Clifford Anderson, a young author who has penned a play worth killing for.

Michalski and Frederic are new to The Public Theatre stage, and their appearances in “Deathtrap” will put them high on audience wish-lists for roles in future shows.

As Sidney’s wife, Myra, Marina Re sets things up effectively for Sidney’s horrifying suggestion – horrifying, yet riveting in its financial promise.

Into this nefarious scheme comes Helga Ten Dorp. In her native Holland, Helga has gained renown as a psychic whose sixth sense has led detectives to several murderers, and now she has moved into a cottage near the Bruhls’ Connecticut home. Janet Mitchko, the theater’s associate artistic director, has been seen and heard with various British accents in past productions; here she has a ball with a Dutch accent.

Fired with psychic excitement, Helga storms through the Bruhls’ study where Sidney’s collection of exotic weaponry on the walls are mementos of his hit plays before his ideas dried up 18 years ago.

Dale Place portrays a fairly conventional character as Porter Milgrim, who is Sidney’s lawyer. Even this is not entirely as it seems, and Place contributes another important link in this excellent quintet of players.

Place was seen in this theater’s “Lend Me a Tenor,” “Rumors,” “Gun-Shy” and “Marvin’s Room.” Re was Claire in “Rumors,” as well as the mother, Kate, in Neil Simon’s “Broadway Bound.”

Lighting, which includes some thunder and lightning on an inevitable dark and stormy night, is key in “Deathtrap,” and lighting designer Michael Reidy handles it very well. The set, designed by Kit Mayer, holds the audience’s attention with its assortment of knives, guns, swords, a mace, a battle-axe, a garrote, a crossbow and Houdini’s handcuffs. Which one will be used next? How? By whom?

Clifford’s crime thriller, which Sidney plots to steal, is coincidentally named “Deathtrap” and this play within the plot takes on an uncanny incarnation of its own as the on-stage action develops.

Just when the audience thinks it has things figured out, “Deathtrap” springs another surprise. With five characters, three on-stage murders in the first act alone, and more to come, it’s intriguing to try to figure out how some could still be left alive at the end.

“Deathtrap,” written by Ira Levin, ran from 1978 to 1982, making its 1,793 performances the fourth-longest running play in Broadway history at the time. Earlier, Levin had written several novels that became popular films in the horror-thriller genre, including “Rosemary’s Baby,” “The Boys from Brazil” and “The Stepford Wives.” One of his earliest works in 1955 was entirely different, “No Time for Sergeants,” a military comedy adapted from a novel by Mac Hyman; that play enjoyed a long run on Broadway and became a hit movie launching the career of Andy Griffith.

With “Deathtrap,” The Public Theatre offers an outstanding opener for the season. Another season-opening feature is The Public Theatre’s newly renovated lobby, which is bright and spacious.

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