DIAL M... FOR MURDER

It’s not every day you lunch with a murderer.

So I jumped at the opportunity.

Giles Davies is so charming, I forgot about my plan to switch drinks when he wasn’t looking, just in case he was trying to poison me.

Mr. Davies, of course, is not a murderer. He just plays one on stage, in Florida Rep’s “Dial M for Murder,” which runs through Dec. 20. His character, Tony, is a dashing but despicable former tennis champion who plots to murder his wife for her money.

Of course, he doesn’t deign to get his own hands dirty; instead, he blackmails an old schoolmate to do the job for him. The scheme: the man will gain entry to the home when Tony is out and his wife is asleep. He’ll hide behind the living room curtains. At a pre-arranged time, Tony will dial his wife. When she answers the phone, he’ll step out from behind the curtains and strangle her.

“Deanna Gibson and Jesse St. Louis in “Dial M for Murder.” COURTESY PHOTO Of course, “Dial M for Murder” takes place in a time before cell phones, cordless phones and caller ID.

Deanna Gibson, recently seen in “Boeing-Boeing,” will play the wife Margot, and Brandon Powers (“Doubt,” “Boeing-Boeing”) will play Max, the American she had an affair with.

Though known as a 1954 Alfred Hitchcock movie, “Dial M for Murder” was originally a play by Frederick Knott. First performed on BBC television in 1952, it moved to the West End, then Broadway.

“He’s a psychopath,” Mr. Davies says of his character. “He’s very urbane, like so many psychopaths.

“I know my type,” he adds. “I love playing outside my type, but I do love (to play the dark villains.) The villains are often the juiciest of roles, the most fun.”

Giles Davies, Deanna Gibson and Brendan Powers in Florida Rep’s production of Dial M For Murder, opening Dec. 4. COURTESY PHOTO Those type of characters create a love/hate relationship with the audience.

“They love you and hate you,” he says. “They love to hate you and they hate to love you. The more you can make that sexiness, the appeal, there’s fascination of seeing someone get through a close scrape or succeed in creating (a dilemma), finding a way to get through it.”

It’s like Iago in Shakespeare’s “Othello.” He’s the only character to talk directly to the audience Mr. Davies notes.

“Shakespeare wanted to create that relationship with the audience, so the audience feels they’re an accomplice, so they can enjoy the suspense Tony is feeling,” he says. “It looks as if the finger of murder points to him. They feel the trepidation that he feels.”

Mr. Davies knows all about Shakepeare, as he was a company member with the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company for nine years. Among other roles, he played King Richard in “Richard III” and Brutus in “Julius Caesar.”

“Dial M for Murder” is a living room drama, a murder mystery.

“It’s not a whodunit; you know who’s done it,” he says. “It’s about the enjoyment of seeing the characters deal with each suspenseful moment and who knows what when, and how can they take that, how can they connect the dots with that current piece of information.”

True, Margot, his wife in the play, had an affair, but his character drove her to it, he says.

“He had no desire to be a loving husband at all. You can’t really blame her for looking elsewhere. The idea of the play is that the two of them, (the American) Max, and Margot, are meant to be together. They’re a good couple, so you cheer for them. Once (my character) finds out about the affair, she ends it. She dedicates herself to him and she wants to make it work.”

As in any good thriller, the tension builds as the play progresses.

“With a play written as well as this is, the objectives of all of the characters are in conflict in the beginning of any scene,” he says. “As the status shifts, the conflicts begin to grow, so you have this one-upmanship. You need to make sure you never release the tension, so you’re able to react from one moment into the next, and keep that sense of tension from the previous moment. It’s getting tighter and tighter and tighter, and you never let the scenes slip, you keep ratcheting it up.”

To prepare for the role of a coldhearted man who plots the murder of his wife, Mr. Davies watched episodes of “Dexter,” a Showtime cable drama about a serial killer who works for the Miami Metro Police Department. But he didn’t model his character of Tony on Dexter.

The two, he says, share “a coldness, an emotional distance that I think is true of all psychopaths. No guilt, no conscience.”

He’s like Nietzsche’s Superman, he says.

“Tony believes it, he knows he is better, he’s superman. He has a right and a supremacy to set himself above others. He’s more evolved, he’s smart, stronger, in all respects. He’s learned he can beat an opponent. If he can’t beat him with his skill, he can psych him out.

“He’s bitter. He’s wanting to prove himself again to himself. He couldn’t play tennis anymore. ‘I was somebody,’ he says.”

Because the play is set in Britain in the1950’s, everyone is very courteous and civil.

“We’re trying to recreate a certain way of carrying oneself,” he says. “Women behaved differently. There’s a civility between me and Margot.

“With a modern piece, you can get away with breaking it. There’s an ease in company you wouldn’t have had 30, 40, 50 years ago, particularly in Britain. People were much more mannered, there was a certain civility. When company arrived, the gentleman of the house would be the last one to sit down. In a modern play, I’d sit down first to put everyone at ease.”

Director Robert Cacioppo plans to recreate the look of the classic thriller on stage, and hired set designer Robert F. Wolin to recreate the set of a 1950’s British living room. Though the Hitchcock film was shot in color, the play will have muted tones.

“It’s the sepia look of old film,” Mr. Davies says. “It’s not strictly black and white, but it definitely has that old flavor.”

Mr. Davies possesses the angular, brooding looks of a villain, with large dark eyes and expressive brows. But he also had raven-black long hair that reaches far past his shoulders. For “Dial M for Murder,” he’ll have that hair under a short, 1950’s-styled wig.

He shares a story of how he once cut his hair for a graduate professor who urged him to do for a role. After casting him, the professor spitefully cut the character’s line about his short hair.

Mr. Davies learned his lesson and now owns some wigs that work quite well for plays in which he has to be closely shorn.

“I keep the hair,” he says “I’ve never been one to live my life someone else’s way.”

After teaching as an adjunct professor in movement and acting for the University of Cincinnati, College Conservatory of Music and Drama, he’s recently moved to Southwest Florida.

“Dial M for Murder” is his first role with Florida Rep.

“It’s nice to get new creative input, and a new creative eye on my work,” he says. “If I wanted to keep growing as an actor, I needed a different eye on my work.

“My attraction to theater is that living moment that only exists in that single moment with you and me. It’s that exchange and communion between you all that attracts me to the art form.” 

.. if you go

>> “Dial M for Murder” >> When: Dec. 4 – 20 with previews Dec. 2, 3 >> Where: The Florida Repertory Theatre, 2267 Bay Street, in the historic Arcade Theatre in downtown Fort Myers, between Jackson and Hendry streets >> Cost: $20 to $42 >> Information: Call 332-4488 or go to www.floridarep.org