‘Inspired by True Events’ Review: True Crime Thriller Riddled With Clichés

In May 2010, Daniel Wozniak, an actor performing in a production of the musical “Nine” at the Liberty Theater in Los Alamitos, Calif., killed two people. He dismembered the body of one of his victims, and kept a portion of it at another local theater. News of the heinous acts sent shock waves through the performing arts community, and more recently led the actor Ryan Spahn to write “Inspired by True Events,” an Out of the Box Theatrics production now running at Theater 154 in the West Village.

This immersive show wisely plays off our modern-day fascination with true crime, but, frustratingly, it’s missing the elements that keep the genre compelling: a clear mapping of intimate relationships, a psychological analysis of motive and a captivating villain.

“Inspired by True Events” begins with the stage manager, Mary (Dana Scurlock), of Uptown Theater — the kind of scrappy local company that programs “A Christmas Carol” every winter to offset the cost of more adventurous work during other seasons — entering a green room littered with grease-stained pizza boxes and empty bottles of vodka (the scenic design is by Lindsay G. Fuori), evidence of the previous night’s opening festivities.

We’re all backstage with Mary, inside the real green room of Theater 154. (The building’s traditional theater is cleverly used too.) The backstage environment, made even more intimate by the production’s 35-seat audience cap, adds multisensory layers to the show. When Mary puts on a fresh pot of coffee in anticipation of her haggard cast — Colin (Jack DiFalco), Eileen (Mallory Portnoy) and Robert (Lou Liberatore) — we not only smell the pungent brew but also the gurgling of the coffee maker cuts into the dialogue. The sound of the water roiling effectively hints at something more sinister to come.

Spahn and the director, Knud Adams, have a couple of these adrenaline-inducing tricks up their sleeves, including offstage thuds and the rustling of mice gnawing on something in the vents (sound design by Peter Mills Weiss). But the show is at its best when it lets the green room serve as a microcosm for these characters’ anxieties: Colin’s breakup with his girlfriend, Claire; Eileen’s stress over her mother being in the audience; and Robert’s laments about his horrible day. These interesting bits of character development have a meta impact, influencing how the Uptown players are preparing for their performance, and how we, the audience, come to view the Uptown players. These moments prove Spahn’s ability to weave personality into the high-concept narrative fabric, so it’s mind-boggling that he doesn’t do it more frequently.