Deathtrap is Ira Levin's ingeniously twisty thriller about Sidney Bruhl, a once-successful Broadway playwright now suffering through a dry spell, who receives a brilliant script from a former student and only half-jokingly muses to his wife that he could murder the young man and claim the work as his own. What begins as dark humor curdles into genuine menace as Sidney invites the student to his Connecticut home under false pretenses, setting in motion a plot riddled with double-crosses, fake deaths, and shifting alliances that keep both the characters and the audience guessing who is manipulating whom. The play is celebrated for its meta-theatrical playfulness, filled with props and dialogue referencing the very conventions of stage thrillers it is simultaneously employing, along with a series of shocking act-break twists designed to make audiences gasp audibly. Levin, also known for Rosemary's Baby, constructs an airtight puzzle box of a play that rewards close attention. Its reputation as one of the most successful thrillers in Broadway history rests on its ability to repeatedly upend audience expectations right up to its final twist.

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