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.
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| 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
