Wendice meticulously plots the perfect murder, but his carefully planned event goes awry and the wrong person is offed. When a policeman starts looking into the suspicous turn of events, Wendice comes up with the cunning plan of pinning the murder on his wife - if she isn't dead, at least she'll be destroyed.
Richard Saadé plays Wendice in the UK Touring Theatre's production of Dial M, which premiers in Dubai this week, and describes his character as something of a paradox. "He's your archetypal 1950s gentleman - very cool, very suave, very calm," he says. "But on the more unpleasant side of his nature he is very controlling and very possessive." With Saadé's clear crisp tenor, curled up at the end under the effect of a scottish brogue "the actor spent most of his life in Edinburgh", Wedice's chilled charm seems a perfect fit. But with a disarming self deprecation, Saadé describes his landing the role as though it wasn't a big deal. "I think they were looking for somebody with certain physical traits - a tall, dark-haired man - and somebody who was able to deal with the text - it's a very wordy play," he allows. The role of Wendice generally calls for classically trained actors who can handle both complex verbiage and subtle stage acting, both of which Saadé had learned as a student at the prestiguous Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. With his theatre training, Saadé was able to embody the multi-faceted personality of Wendice. "He's a very intelligent man and he likes to show everybody else how intelligent he is," Saadé remarks. "He's also incredibly manipulative and when he finds out that his wife has been playing away, his pride gets the better of him and he tries to deal with it the best way he can."
While Ray Milland most famously portrayed Tony Wendice in Alfred Hitchcock's version of the play, Saadé decided not to model his performance on Milland's. "I wanted to make him a lot more charming than the character in the film becuase that way the audience enjoys him much more and sympathises with him at the beginning of the play," he explains. "Then when he does unvail his true nature, it's even more shocking."
It is by way of psychological manipulation that the actors and the director have built the appropriate tension for the play. "It's easier in television and film because the director can actually tell the audience where to look," says Saadé. On stage, a much more complex choreography is required to create the same suspense. "The director has been helping us move around the stage and highlighting certain lines and creating this incredibly tense dynamic between the characters, " says Saadé. On top of perfecting subtle glances and gestures to provide as flags for the audience, the cast must contend with one set through the entire play. "It's not very usual to be stuck in one environment but there's so much happening in that room," Saadé allows. "It's like a little Aladdin's cave, that room." An Aladdin's cave complete with murder, gleaming scissors and hollandaise-dipped asparagus.
TimeOut Dubai
Volume 6, Issue 19, May 11 - May 18 2006