Patricia Highsmith (Peggy J. Scott) is none too happy when Edward Ridgeway (Daniel Petzold) shows up at her Swiss Alps hideaway in Switzerland (photo by Rana Faure)
59E59 Theaters
59 East 59th St. between Park & Madison Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through March 3, $35
212-279-4200
www.59e59.org
In her later years, Texas-born misanthropic thriller grand master Patricia Highsmith, the author of such beloved books as The Talented Mr. Ripley and Strangers on a Train, retreated to a small home in the outskirts of the Swiss Alps, avoiding the American publishing world that she felt had never truly accepted her as an important author. In Joanna Murray-Smith’s murky 2015 play, Switzerland, which continues at 59E59 through March 3, that world intrudes on Highsmith’s (Peggy J. Scott) privacy when ambitious young editor Edward Ridgeway (Daniel Petzold) arrives from New York City, determined to get her to sign a contract to write another Ripley book, something she is loath to do. Despite Highsmith’s continuous barbs and not-too-veiled threats, Ridgeway stands his ground, refusing to go away until the writer, well known for her nasty demeanor, anti-Semitism, racism, and smoking and drinking, agrees to bring back Ripley. “I’m done with Ripley,” she declares. “You think you don’t want to write a final Ripley,” Edward says, adding, “I know that you do.” Improbably, the two are soon collaborating on the next Ripley novel, bonding over their mutual love of weaponry.
Edward Ridgeway (Daniel Petzold) and Patricia Highsmith (Peggy J. Scott) consider a new Ripley novel in Joanna Murray-Smith play (photo by Rana Faure)
Mystery bookstore owner and Highsmith publisher Otto Penzler once described the author as “a mean, cruel, hard, unlovable, unloving human being. I could never penetrate how any human being could be that relentlessly ugly…. But her books? Brilliant.” In the first half of the eighty-minute show, it’s fun getting to know this “ugly” woman as she skewers Edward and virtually every topic he brings up, from Hollywood to white bread, from religion to his views on her abilities, on James J. Fenton’s intimate set, a room with a plush rug, gun and knife displays, and the wooden desk where Highsmith works, with a small fan, an electric typewriter, a photo of Alfred Hitchcock, and a bust of Sophocles. The back-and-forth banter is reminiscent of Ira Levin’s Deathtrap, in which a playwright and one of his students get involved in a literary cat-and-mouse game, but Murray-Smith, one of Australia’s most popular and successful writers, spends too much time putting platitudes in the mouths of the characters, who make lofty statements about Literature with a capital L. Petzold (Pushkin, In the Line) and Scott (Daniel’s Husband, Is He Dead?) play off each other well, establishing an enjoyable chemistry — there’s more to Edward than meets the eye — but the big plot twist unravels the narrative, giving rise to major flaws that director Dan Foster (You Will Remember Me, The Chocolate Show!) can’t cover up. And as the real Highsmith and Hitchcock would know, there’s no coming back from that.