*** With a magnificent display of acting that keeps the audience on the edge of their seats as they laugh uneasily throughout the bizarre events unfolding before them, `Death Trap' has proved to be another resounding triumph for the Jabulani Repertory Company.

The third offering in this five-month season of Cocktail Theatre at the Princess Hotel maintains the high standard we have now come to expect of director Patricia Pogson. This year, she has attracted some of Bermuda's best acting talent and the results are dynamic. The standards attained so far would certainly compare favourably with many professional repertory groups overseas.

Ira Levin's play, laced with murder and not a little mayhem, is undoubtedly one of the enduringly popular thrillers in recent theatre history.

As its hero, famous dramatist Sidney Bruhl obligingly points out in the opening scene of `Death Trap', that this play has all the ingredients for success; never mind that he is actually referring to a script he has just received through the post from a young hopeful who has been attending his playwriting seminars. This use of dramatic irony, in which the play alludes in the very first lines not only to a "juicy murder in Act I...unsuspected developments in Act II...good dialogue...laughs in all the right places...'', but even lists the same number of characters, brilliantly sets the scene for a plot so ingenious that the denouement comes only as the proverbial curtain falls.

On the way to its quite unexpected conclusion there are more than enough frights (not least of which is the shooting scene, where the smoke and smell of gunfire confirms all of Bruhl's ideas of `theatre verite m') to keep the audience in a constant state of jitters, but it is the quality of Levin's script, glittering with wit and humour of the darker kind, which sets this play some notches above the classic Agatha Christie mould.

While keeping the plot on the sizzle, Patricia Pogson has still skillfully managed to flesh out these characters who so suddenly and so shockingly descend from theatrical badinage to deadly earnestness. She has always understood the way in which the momentum of a play gradually builds to the final climax and she makes her actors give their considerable all. Working within the limiting confines of a wide but shallow stage was probably the biggest technical challenge but she overcomes this with meticulously planned blocking -- as well as three protagonists who are blest with the natural stage presence that pulls the whole thing together.

Since `Death Trap' will be staged each month through to the end of March, `fair play' forbids elaboration on the plot, other than to note that it centres around Sidney, whose `writer's block' has lasted rather longer than is usual and who desperately needs another hit to keep his name up in lights and his luxury cars in the garage.

As Sidney, Richard Fell simply adds to the long and varied list of roles that he seems to make so uniquely his own. This is a brilliant performance, understated and disconcerting in the cheery humour with which he imbues Sidney's increasingly menacing behaviour. What seems merely a sardonic and undoubtedly theatrical sense of humour at the play's start becomes all the more chilling as he casually considers not merely the act, but the precise details of his projected `murder most foul'.

Providing a perfect foil is Annette Hallett as Myra, his wife. Dowdy in comparison with her glamorous spouse, she knows her role has been and is to bolster the great man's confidence and material comforts. Her growing disbelief as she realises that his speculations on the subject of murder are not entirely academic, is beautifully done.

Bouncing into the Bruhls' converted coach house, where the rustic serenity of their home is livened up with Sidney's collection of weapons draped about the walls, is Hans Jensen, the young college graduate whose play has so intrigued his former teacher. He captures just the right air of youthful enthusiasm that men like Sidney Bruhl find so threatening: to say more, would of course ruin the tortuous turns this drama takes.

Jeanette Freestone, who also has a wonderful sense of theatre, plays the Dutch psychic, Helga Ter Dorp. Chattering on in what sounds like an authentically Dutch accent, she chooses to play this pivotal role in a gentler way than is sometimes seen and it seems to work, for once again, we have this sense of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events. It seems so plausible, that the `vibes' she receives of impending doom in the Bruhl household, are passed off by Sidney as those of a silly old granny.

Completing the cast is Dal Tucker, who makes a brief, but important appearance as the family lawyer.

On the debit side, there are so far no programmes for any of the productions.

Besides making a reviewer's job a trifle confusing, this fine company of actors and backstage crew certainly deserve, at the very least, to have their names before the so far very appreciative audiences.

For sheer entertainment and the professional way in which this play is delivered, this latest production by Jabulani is another winner that should not be missed. The next opportunity to see `Death Trap' will be on December 15 through 17.

Patricia Calnan THE PLOT THICKENS -- Jeanette Freestone (centre) in a scene from `Death Trap', with Jens Hansen (left) and Richard Fell (right).