Samantha Soule, Shane McRae, Dashiell Eaves and Aya Cash
(Photo credit: Sandra Coudert)

In Killers and Other Family, Lucy Thurber has appropriated the premise of The Desperate Hours and taken it one step further. Here the threatening intruders are family that the heroine has thought she has left behind. The tension in Caitriona McLaughlin’s taut production is palpable. The problem with the play is that the premise implies two possible endings, neither of which is dramatically satisfying. Although the play’s cast of four give excellent performances, they can’t fill in the gaps of missing information.

Lucy Thurber’s psychological thriller, Killers and Other Family , is being given a second production at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater where the play had its world premiere during the company’s 2000-01 season. Since 2001, Thurber has become well known for such plays as Stay, Where We’re Born, Scarcity, Ashville and Monstrosity . This new production has given the author a chance to do some rewrites on her earlier version.

Lizzie (played by Samantha Soule) has thought that she has left her previous life behind. She now lives a peaceful, intellectual life as a graduate student with her roommate Claire (Aya Cash) in New York City. She is two weeks away from submitting her doctoral dissertation. There is a knock on the door and in walks her brother Jeff (Dashiell Eaves) and his friend Danny (Shane McRae) with whom they both grew up.

It is Lizzie’s worst nightmare as the two young men are running away from a crime and psychopath Danny is not to be trusted. Worse yet, Lizzie has not come clean to Claire about her previous life. If only Lizzie can send Jeff and Danny on their way before Claire gets home from work. And then in walks Claire on a surprise visit to bring Lizzie lunch.

In her “Author’s Note” in the program, Thurber relates that her point of departure was that when one has moved out of one’s previous world into another, totally different, the greatest fear is that the two worlds must collide. The problem with Lizzie’s story in Killers and Other Family is that we never learn enough about her previous life to understand where she has come from. The passive Jeff and his dangerous and manipulative friend Danny were reasons to want to leave her home town, but of her actual family life we learn little. No father is mentioned so that we assume he was absent. Mother brought home men but this in itself does not constitute child abuse. The fact that Lizzie has distanced herself from her family who has never visited her nor seen her new life speaks worlds but doesn’t tell us enough.

Once Lizzie and Claire both know about Jeff and Danny’s crime, the play has two choices, either for someone to get killed or for the men to leave. Neither is dramatically satisfying after the drama’s heightened tension. Would Jeff allow his sister or her roommate to get hurt? Would the two men agree to leave now that the women know their secret? Soule is remarkable in being able to shift from Lizzi Once Lizzie and Claire both know about Jeff and Danny’s crime, the play has two choices, either for someone to get killed or for the men to leave. Neither is dramatically satisfying after the drama’s heightened tension. Would Jeff allow his sister or her roommate to get hurt? Would the two men agree to leave now that the women know their secret? Soule is remarkable in being able to shift from Lizzie’s graduate school sophistication back to her small town idiom and stance when confronted with Jeff and Danny and back again when Claire arrives. However, her character is undermined by having to continually shout “Shut up!” when Lizzie finds herself losing control of the situation. She too often becomes inarticulate, even though we are to believe that she has almost completed a research dissertation and will soon have a doctorate.

As the psychopathic Danny, a hulking brute with the mind of a child, McRae is frighteningly menacing. From the moment he walks through Lizzie’s door, he is a time bomb waiting to go off. Eaves successful portrays the damaged brother whose experiences have made him a passive, silent follower. Cash is diverting as the chatty, upper middle class roommate who at first fails to understand what is going on. Jeff and Danny’s visit will forever change Lizzie and Claire’s relationship but we are told too little to understand the enormity of the tragedy for the heroine.

The single most effective element is the set design by John McDermott which puts an attractive but simply furnished New York apartment on stage. Emily Rebholz’s costumes have a believably lived-in look for its twenty-somethings. The fight direction by David Anzuelo is suitably scary. The bright lighting by Benjamin Ehrenreich establishes that the 90 minute play takes place around lunchtime on a sunny day.

Lucy Thurber’s Killers and Other Family wants to be both a tense thriller and a psychological drama. The premise is fascinating: what happens when one’s past comes crashing through the door? Although acted to the hilt by its fine actors who maintain the play’s tension, Killers and Other Family does not entirely achieve its goals.

Killers and Other Family (through October 11)

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, 224 Waverly Place, in Manhattan

For tickets, call 212-868-4444 or http://www.smarttix.com