Star Bar’s ‘Murder’ borrows from Hitchcock

"Murder in Green Meadows" may sound like Agatha Christie, but the Star Bar Players' new production is actually more like Alfred Hitchcock.
  

"When I first read the script, I thought it was a Hitchcock film," said director Kaleb Kohart of Douglas Post's 1992 play. "You see certain things that you believe are what they are, but at the end, you realize nothing is the way it seems. The people getting duped aren't the ones you thought. There are so many twists and turns."
  

Producer Mark Hennessy, who plays Thomas Devereaux, the controlling homebuilder in this four-character psychological drama, says he chose the play for the company's season because "thrillers work well on the stage, people like them, and we hadn't done one in a few years."
  

The scene is a quiet suburban paradise, where Devereaux and his wife, Joan, have recently moved. They become close - too close - with their neighbors the Symons: easygoing Jeff and brilliant but psychologically fragile Carolyn.
  

Even though area audiences know Kohart primarily as an actor - for which he's won a Pikes Peak Arts Council award - directing is his first love, and in fact it's what led him into stage acting four years ago.
  

"I wanted to be a better film director," said Kohart. "I was going to do two shows, and then out."
  

Instead he got the bug: "Thirty-some-odd shows later, I thought maybe it's time to go back to directing," he said.
  

The ground is as much new as it is familiar because despite the Hitchcockian feel, "Murder in Green Meadows" is still a stage play.
  

What's consistent is Kohart's emphasis on creating deep, believable characters, from whom the drama flows.
  

"At one point or another you're cheering for every character on the stage," he said.
  

One pleasant surprise has been his cast, which includes Kim Ormston as Joan, and JaNae Stansbery and Thayne DeBest as the Symons.
  

"They've amazed me with what they've brought to the table," he said. "Thayne is a comic actor who's never done drama. And JaNae, I've seen her in a couple of things, but I've never seen her do a role with real meat."

details

Star Bar Players present "Murder in Green Meadows"

When: Opens today (rescheduled from March 7); 8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. March 23; through March 29

Where: Lon Chaney Theatre, City Auditorium, 221 E. Kiowa St.

Tickets: $12/$15; 573-7411 or www.starbarplayers.org