‘Vineland Place’ at Palm Beach Dramaworks: A Literary Thriller of Secrets and Deception

 

 

This is the world premiere of an intriguing play from Palm Beach Dramaworks’ Perlberg Festival of New Plays: Vineland Place by Steven Dietz. If the playwright’s name sounds familiar, it may be because Dietz has long been one of the country’s most produced dramatists, with some forty plays to his credit. This latest work sits squarely within his wheelhouse: part murder mystery, part psychological duel, wrapped in a highly stylized production where every theatrical element contributes to the whole. Look to the shadows, the pauses, the sidelong glances, and the accumulating unease to find both the meaning and the pleasure of this play.

 

It begins innocently enough. A young writer, Henry Sanders, is hired by Victoria Brody, widow of novelist Fenton Brody, a one-book literary phenomenon whose lone success, Sheridan Road, became a cult classic, “a thriller wrapped around the harrowing emotional drama of a family.” A publisher, having paid a substantial advance, was eagerly awaiting the sequel, Vineland Place, until Brody died in a nine-story fall from the couple’s penthouse apartment (“the best thing that could possibly happen on the eve of publication”).

 

Victoria promises the publisher the nearly completed manuscript and hires Sanders to finish it. He must work inside the apartment where the notes and manuscript remain, taking nothing home at night, even signing an NDA before beginning. Nothing suspicious here, right? Sanders appears the ideal choice, idolizing Brody as he does. You might say he belongs to the cult’s vanguard.

 

This is a two-hander, and I cannot think of a more ideal actor for Victoria Brody than Anne-Marie Cusson, who excelled in another memorable PBD two-hander nearly a decade ago, Collected Stories, likewise a play with writing and authorship at its heart. That production remains one of my favorite Dramaworks offerings from that period, in no small part because of Cusson’s performance.

Christopher Ryan Cowan and Anne-Marie Cusson; Jason Nuttle Photography

 

Opposite her is PBD newcomer Christopher Ryan Cowan as the eager, star-struck Henry Sanders, hired to complete the unfinished novel. What could possibly go wrong? Plenty.

 

What begins as a seemingly straightforward story about a young writer finishing the work of a dead literary idol gradually becomes something far more layered and psychologically combative. Dietz turns the relationship between Sanders and Victoria into an increasingly dangerous duel of shifting sympathies.

 

This is where the acting of Cusson and Cowan truly shines, the two performers handling these reversals like a finely tuned piece of counterpoint. Director J. Barry Lewis makes the most of these high-wire moments through precise pacing, furtive looks, and carefully measured pauses that allow the tension to build layer by layer. He understands how to transform what at first resembles a sophisticated drawing room drama into a genuine murder mystery. Clever dialogue and concealed secrets become dangerous weapons, and Lewis capitalizes on every opportunity the script affords him.

 

The play demands close attention from its audience. Some of the necessary back-story must be explained rather than dramatized directly, occasionally brushing against the fourth wall, and the intricacies of the plot matter greatly. Still, Dietz keeps these mechanics moving smoothly, and this cast and production team seem particularly adept at making those transitions feel effortless. One can easily imagine Vineland Place adapted into a Netflix miniseries where some of the back-story might unfold more expansively onscreen.

 

Anne-Marie Cusson and Christopher Ryan Cowan; Jason Nuttle Photography

Cusson delivers another bravura performance. Is Victoria seductive, manipulative, vulnerable, or victimized? Cusson walks that line throughout the evening, sometimes bewildering the audience, sometimes delighting it, often doing both simultaneously. Cowan proves an effective foil. Was Henry hired merely to finish a manuscript, or perhaps for companionship by a woman widowed only six months earlier, amid the wine, candlelight, and increasingly suggestive atmosphere? Or was there another motive altogether? Cowan balances defensiveness and aggression effectively, his character alternately powerless and empowered depending on the shifting terrain of the scene.

 

Anne Mundell’s scenic design hangs heavily in a film noir, “bad-decisions-that-make-great-stories” atmosphere perfectly suited to the play. The upper-class Boston apartment, perched on the ninth floor of a building where the elevator goes only to the eighth, becomes part of the mystery itself. Watch carefully: even that seemingly incidental detail carries implications. The set proves ideal for bringing together both the elegance of drawing room drama and the menace of noir.

 

Costume designer Brian O'Keefe has ample opportunity to chart Victoria Brody’s shifting personas, from a striking red pantsuit to a seductive kimono-style jacket that lends a bohemian allure to her appearance. Henry Sanders, by contrast, is appropriately subdued in utilitarian young-writer attire, complete with a weathered leather tote bag: nothing flashy, nothing memorable.

 

The lighting design by Paul Black deepens the atmosphere as the evening progresses, gradually moving the play from drawing room sophistication toward full noir sensibility, the illumination dimming into low light and candle glow.

 

PBD newcomer Robertson Witmer provides both sound design and original music. The opening music is somber and almost liturgical, with echoes of Erik Satie in the piano passages, at times underscored by droning sustained notes that quietly suggest dread beneath the civilized surface.

 

Projection designer Adam J. Thompson reminds us that while this is indeed a murder mystery, writing itself remains at the center of the play. Letters occasionally stream across the set, coalescing into words and phrases — including the ominous “I know what you’ve done” — while even the ellipsis takes on unexpected significance.

 

And so the play finally arrives at its central question: which secrets have been deliberately withheld, and which thoughts remain merely unfinished? “One of us is smart enough to pull this off,” a character observes, and the audience spends much of the evening wondering which one it is. The answer leads to a satisfying and memorable denouement. This is a thriller very much worth seeing.

 

Vineland Place; Jason Nuttle Photography

Baseball to the Rescue, Again: Finding Order in a Season of Disorder

  

Twilight at Roger Dean Stadium, Jupiter, FL

This year, as in years past, I greet the baseball season as a kind of pagan renewal—a way to cleanse my spirit of the nightmares and chaos of modern life. It offers a return to the beauty and structure of the game I once played and still follow, albeit casually, no longer as an obsessed fan. I remain loyal to my NY Yankees, as I have been since achieving baseball consciousness, and, since retiring to Florida, I’ve enjoyed the serendipity of landing in an area with not one but two minor league teams sharing a nearby stadium which also serves as the spring training home of the Miami Marlins and the St. Louis Cardinals. But it is the Single-A affiliates that draw me: the Jupiter Hammerheads (Marlins) and the Palm Beach Cardinals.

 

Sometimes they play one another; more often, one is on the road while the other hosts a rotating cast of Single-A clubs. I don’t especially favor one team over the other. I go to experience the game. And frankly, given the choice between the nosebleed seats of a major league park at Broadway prices and a minor league game at a fraction of the cost—with seats that make you feel part of it—I’ll take the latter every time. Such is the experience of being a “Silver Slugger,” attending some twenty-plus Wednesday night games at Roger Dean Stadium: $50 for the season, including a hot dog, a Coke, and even a free T-shirt when you pick up your tickets.

 

Purists might say that at such prices you get what you pay for—bush league play. I beg to differ. Everything about the minor league experience feels major league: the field is immaculate, professionally maintained, and the quality of play is high. Yes, there are occasional errors, but I’ve seen plenty of those at the major league level as well.

 

Less than ten percent of the players I’ve watched will make it to the majors, and fewer still will achieve anything like stardom. That hardly matters to me. I go to see the game, and as long as minor league baseball treats it as something close to a sacred ritual, I’ll be there.

 

This year, that ritual feels especially necessary. I made a similar point last season, writing about the early months of Trump 2.0 and what felt, even then, like a sledgehammer taken to the Constitution. This piece is, in a sense, a continuation, or perhaps a fast-forward, of that earlier entry, Watching the Game, Remembering the Dream.

 

Now the sense of political chaos seems to have widened, reaching beyond our borders and unsettling alliances we have long taken for granted since World War II, with our military at times appearing less a stabilizing force than something more transactional.

 

“Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.” Perhaps the answer lies not in nostalgia but under the lights of some 120 minor league teams, playing their weekday games and weekend doubleheaders, offering a small but steady vision of normalcy. The more the game changes—the pitch clock, electronic calls, slightly larger bases—the more it remains itself. The rules endure. There is still order within the chaos, and even a measure of hope within the surrounding sense of drift. And where else can DEI and meritocracy coexist so seamlessly—a place where those with talent and discipline can succeed, no matter where they come from? This, at least, feels like the real American credo.

 

This season, I’ve managed seats right behind home plate, close enough to feel part of the game itself. From there, the essentials come into focus: pitcher, catcher, batter—and even the umpire.

 

Last Wednesday night’s game had its share of highlights—a triple, home runs, several double plays—and ended with the Jupiter Hammerheads defeating the Daytona Tortugas (affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds) 7–4. But it’s not any single game that matters. It’s the structure, the ritual, and last Wednesday night the chance to watch a young left-hander from the Dominican Republic, Keyner Benitez (just 19 years old) throw mid-ninety mph fastballs while working his slider and changeup, giving up only two hits over 4.1 innings (one unearned run). At 6'1" and about 170 pounds, he has time to fill out, to build strength. Who knows what he might become.

 

When I wrote last year’s piece, another lefty was on the mound—a major leaguer on a rehab assignment, Ranger Suárez, a Venezuelan pitcher then with the Phillies. Ironically, on the very night I was watching Benitez, Suárez was pitching against my Yankees at Fenway Park (traded to the Red Sox last winter). He lost. From a baseball point of view, it was a very good week.