Prescription Murder: Columbo Without a Predator

Workshop Theatre is staging Prescription: Murder at the pumphouse theatre from the 9th to the 17th of May. Written by William Link & Richard Levinson, the play popularized the  howcatchem formula (dramatic structure in which the murderer is known from the outset) that went on to define the eponymous television series, Columbo. Since this is not a murder mystery, specifics of the narrative will be discussed, this play is less about concealment and more about exposure – the psychological unravelling and dissection, by Columbo, of the homicidal perpetrators. Psychiatrist, Dr. Ray Flemming conspires with mistress, Sarah Hudson, to murder Dr. Ray’s overbearing & possessive wife, Claire Flemming. What results is an elaborate plot to disguise the murder as a violent burglary. Enter Columbo, brought into what should be, on the face of it, an open and shut case, who sees more at work. Employing his dogged perseverance, understated intelligence and disarming demeanor, he begins to peel back the layers of the crime, exposing the psychological fault lines beneath Dr. Ray’s vain exterior. Why is Colombo still relevant? Simply because he embodies what Aristotle termed phronesis, context-sensitive reasoning that guides right action in real life situations that are complex. Instrumental reasoning, by comparison and illustrated by Dr. Ray Flemming, is rooted in selecting the most efficient means to achieve a given end. Is it more efficient for Dr. Ray to murder his wife instead of charting out a way to diplomatically secure a divorce? Yes, it is the most efficient solution to what, to him, has become an indissoluble problem. Is it a justifiable response to a complex ethical situation? No, it is not. What is also fascinating about Columbo’s quarry, is that they are a chameleonic breed, able to simulate the social emotions that accompany loss and grief without truly experiencing these states.  It is their acuity for being able to mimic human emotions that allows them to pass undetected in their surroundings, - that is, until they meet Colombo. Where others see polished civility, Columbo sees a carefully concealed void, homicidal intent detectable in minor revelations. The double exemplification of the cold rationalism of expedience and social duplicity is found in many literary and dramatic characters. Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth embodies this calculative evil with lines that are particularly chilling; “Look like th’ innocent flower, But be the serpent under’t.” Many terms, both poetic and clinical, have been used to describe the visage of duplicity that defines this brand of dark intelligence. I am particularly drawn to the term devised by Idris Shah (popularizing Sufi culture and thought in the West), 'the perfumed scorpion’ to describe the mask of refined intelligence and gentility that conceals destructive human proclivities. It is worth asking whether Columbo is able to see through these voided people because he operates at a level of self-detachment that suggests his emotional neutrality is a form of controlled sociopathy, or whether his detachment is not in fact moral coldness, but a deliberate moral discipline. This is why Colombo has become such an archetypal character, the interpretive ambiguity around who he is remains just as interesting as the psycho-social defects of the killers he ensnares. To get back to Colombo’s relevance, what does he have to say about the world that we live and the nature of our challenges? Quite a lot. We live in a time where institutions, social practices and cultural frameworks are saturated by instrumental reasoning, Colombo reminds us that there is an enduring value in phronesis-based ethical frameworks, asking not only, what works, but, what is right?  Asking what is right is harder, requires more patience, may cost more money and will most assuredly require more time, but what is lost when we evade those costs? It puts us at risk of being a society where cleverness eclipses conscience, where success is measured by how much we saved in the preservation of our cultural egoism and not how much we were willing to spend in augmenting and preserving our cultural integrity.

To the production – Ray Dhaliwal as Columbo was surgical and confident, embracing the idiosyncratic qualities of the character with confidence and avoiding the temptation to turn the character into a caricature. Dhaliwal’s performance borrowed from the stock of performative oddities that Peter Falk developed for Colombo, but Dhaliwal was also able to infuse his own essence into the character, gradually making his inhabitation of the character believable and authentic. It was a performance that was perfectly scaled to the size of the stage and the theatre, developing just the right amount of dramatic energy to create a performance that was right-sized for the environment. There were moments towards the end of the play where he infused the character with a surfeit of emotion, this was out of kilter with the general stoicism of Columbo but was I believe, as will be explained below, the result of a structural imbalance.

Unfortunately, the production drags and gradually becomes dis-interesting, this is because Columbo is a source of danger and unexpectedness when seen through the existential lens of other characters, those other characters have just as much to do in defining his energy as he does, and in this production those alternative perspectives are blunted and dimmed. The other characters are played with enfeebled energy (besides Miss Petrie), they are never believable and are unable to bring any gravitas to the stage. To be perfectly frank, they are at times equivalent to behaving as human props, only really serving mechanical purposes and never really giving us a glimpse into their inner lives. This is not a defect of the script. The tepid ensemble energy is most pronounced in the character of Dr. Ray, he should serve as a foil to Colombo – elegant, suave, intelligent, ruthless and deeply egotistical. The dramatic depiction is quite the opposite, he comes across as a character to whom events happen, as opposed to driving them forward. We see only a failing human being, full of quotidian foibles and empirical deficiencies, but never as someone who is able to meet Colombo on his level. This is why the dialectical relationship between them is full of defects. Right from the outset we know that Dr. Ray will be no match for Colombo, he poses no threat to Colombo and is only a man to be overcome and not an equal to be engaged. The mystique and the allure of the hunt dissipates immediately and all we are left with is the logical unfolding of events to a denouement that is all too evident. This results in a lopsided dramatic experience, where the intellect of Colombo is increasingly seen as average, only because Dr. Ray is depicted as a very, very average character. In this production, Colombo lives in an antagonistic vacuum. The mythic appeal of the dark deceit and intelligence behind Colombo’s adversaries, popularized with excellence in the TV series, gives way to something much more banal and tedious in this staging.

The other characters were just as uninteresting, filling the void of the stage with lines and a pulse, but never really, again, operating in the same complex world that Columbo inhabits. Miss Petrie, played by Trish Clark, was effervescent and exhibited excellent poise on stage, playing with the poise and self-assurance that comes with experience and intuition. The set design and lighting was austere but was functional and evidenced thoughtful work by the production technicians. The set changes, in full view of the audience, was very interesting, underscoring the fact that the genre of the play has nothing to hide, that it embraces exposure.

At a broader level of interpretation, the flawed staging of this production can be seen as a hyper-reality of justice. Colombo walks through the world on this stage like a glitch in a simulation. Other characters appear as codes – scripted, automated, internally empty, and functionally bereft of purpose and motive. There is a sort of banality of evil that is depicted in this production that I would argue is only half the story in the TV series. This production strips the play of its stakes, portraying evil as merely procedural or weak hollows out the experience of watching two distinct kinds of intelligence collide. The psychomachia between Colombo and Dr. Ray fails to expose the inner rot behind the social polish of Dr. Ray. This is not a duel between phronesis and predatory cunning, it is a man swatting a fly that refuses to buzz.

A production with a lot of potential, but ultimately, lost in a lack of structural experimentation and thematic exploration. Evil without teeth, drama without presence.

Final Score: 3.5/10