Dead Lawyers
Written by George Larkin

The story: A pack of lawyers, all strangers, show up at a time share in the Hamptons, only to be trapped by the worst storm of the season. There, they find a dead woman (LAURA) on the couch, an apparent suicide. The only non-lawyer in the group, TUBA, a social worker, finds her diary. He starts to read it and begins to fall in love with her.

But in the diary he also finds out that she had actually decided in the end not to kill herself. At that moment, he realizes that she was murdered. They do a quick head count, and they discover that there’s an extra guest at the time share! Someone does not belong there, and that someone is probably the killer!! But since it’s a time share, no one knows each other. Which one of them is it?!?!

The huge storm is growing, the bridge is out, and they’re all trapped there!

Six characters, one set, and 85 minutes of nearly continuous action!

The productions: Originally written and produced by George Larkin for the Sacred Fools in Los Angeles to critical acclaim and sold out houses, the play’s since had runs at UCSD (with costume and set design done by the La Jolla Playhouse), EndTimes in NYC, and University of California-Berkeley.  Baker’s Plays offered to publish it.  NYC’s Lark Theatre selected it for its Playwright’s Week, and Chris O’Donnell’s production company at Warner Brothers developed it as a film. The play was also selected to be part of the NYC’s Lark Theatre Playwrights Week.

The reviews:

Daily Californian: (University of California-Berkeley)

Dirty Truths and Clean Getaways
Where would this country be without lawyers? They have managed to garner the reputation of simultaneously fighting the good fight for justice and being soul-sucking, bloodletting bastards all in one shot. This sort of reverent fear based on stock stereotypes feeds into a fascination for separating the lawyer from the human. Or the human from the lawyer. (Or is there a human at all?!)

By Sara Hayden

George Larkin’s “Dead Lawyers” explores all this and more in a delightfully spoofalicious play under the direction of Ryan Fields, brought to you by Barestage Productions. Watch what happens when a bunch of different lawyers are confronted with a murder under their noses and nerves shatter…  (T)he cast breaks out crazy personality-quirks expressed through extreme physicality and feistiness, you may become just as anxious as the characters to dig out the down and dirty truth. Is the criminal the “American Psycho”-esque Douglas (Grant Stream), cutesy-cheeky Cathy (Karen Chong), the great bad actor Peter (Morten N. Christiansen), suicidal Laura (Lara Palanjian), a-hole fiance Michael (Shaun Mullen) or nice-guy lawyer-turned-counselor Tuba (Dylan Caponi)?  The play is filled with enough red herrings to be mistaken for a package of Swedish Fish.  With all the confusion that abounds, the real culprit may just slyly swim away.

I know you’ve always wanted to take a jolly jaunt to a timeshare with six lawyers at once and get trapped with them for a whole weekend under extreme pressure. Here’s your chance. Take it! And don’t feel too guilty about laughing as the characters lace up lies and tug each other around. Think of the absurd interactions as a kind of comedic cruelty that will make you appreciate the job you have or inspire you to seek out one you love. Either way, attending a show for this student-run production has some eccentric entertainment in store for you.

LA WEEKLY: (Sandra Ross)

On a dark and stormy night, corporate lawyer Laura (Desi Doyen) admits she’s been suicidal for some time, so it’s no surprise when the other weekend renters at an isolated Hamptons time-share stumble upon a corpse. With the deceased center stage, rival lawyer Douglas (Allen Lulu) steals Laura’s legal briefs while depressed social worker Tuba (Scott Rabinowitz) reads her diary and finds himself smitten with her. Mousy tax lawyer Cathy (Alexandria Sage) revels in the excitement, comforting the deceased’s fiancé Peter (Graham McCann) until Michael (J. Haran) arrives claiming to be the real fiancé.

Playwright George Larkin cannibalizes various genre conventions with mistaken identities, elevating the whodunit spoof to new levels of hilarity. He keeps the action moving, the jokes zooming and the pratfalls flying at a breathless pace, with the energetic cast delivering uniformly strong comic performances. Dominated by a nautical motif (including a giant taxidermied marlin), Aaron Francis’ multi-doored set is nicely suited to the action, particularly to Adam Bitterman’s well-choreographed fight scene.

BACKSTAGE WEST (Wenzel Jones)

Although George Larkin's script is hardly the Shakespearean bloodfest the title promises (I will admit to nurturing a sweet fantasy wherein an arena of lawyers battle each other until only a few cell phones and a Porsche key chain are left behind), it's still a fun show based on the Agatha Christie premise of a house, cut off from civilization by a storm, containing a mysterious corpse and a number of terrified occupants.

Lawyers Douglas (Allen Lulu) and Cathy (Alexandria Sage), along with the way-out-of-his-element social worker Tuba (Scott Rabinowitz), all arrive at their Hamptons time-share to find a corpse, head neatly bagged, sitting upright on the couch. A quick perusal of the nearby diary, with its 17 subheadings, reveals what they think to be the truth-until the corpse's fiancé Peter (Graham McCann) shows up. And then the corpse's fiancé Michael (J. Haran) shows up. And then things get complicated.

Lulu and Sage are wonderfully reprehensible as lawyers who attempt the occasional human emotion, while Rabinowitz proves a warm and personable foil. McCann and Haran are fun, but I can't tell you why. Desi Doyen has a captivating Grace Kelly quality, but I can't tell you who she is. I may have told you too much already. The delightfully named Adam Bitterman shows an adept directorial hand for farce.

I don't know who to applaud for the lights - I'll guess it's production designer Aaron Francis - but they're wonderful. Much of the play happens by candlelight, and it's not until they all light up at once after a blackout that you even realize they're not real. I don't know how those warm little pools of light were achieved so naturally, but it's quite an effect. The set (the modest Mr. Francis again?) is a lovely bit of seafoam green real estate. Babe Hack's sound makes for a ripping good storm.

Only the addition of deceased IRS auditors could make for a more appealing premise.

VENTURA COUNTY STAR & SAN BERNADINO SUN (Jeff Favre)

Question: A lawyer dies, goes to heaven and they throw a parade for her. Why? Answer: Because she was the first one to get there.

With this and dozens of other attorney jokes, the play Dead Lawyers is a hysterical send-up of Agatha Christie whodunits and door-slamming farces with more egotistical lawyers than an O.J. trial.

A raging storm, a washed-out bridge and a secluded time-share house in the Hamptons provide the ideal setting for this comic mystery. Adam Bitterman directs George Larkin’s play for The Sacred Fools Theater Company, which has forged its name as one of the city’s better troupes. On Thursdays two lawyers get in for the price of one.

The images: (click for larger version)

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