Hanreddy’s “Seven Keys” to hilarity

Joe Hanreddy’s Seven Keys to Slaughter Peak is fiction about fiction about fiction.

The Milwaukee Repertory Theater opened the show Friday. Hanreddy’s long tenure as artistic director will end about the time it closes. He will leave ’em laughing, applauding and thinking.

Hanreddy wrote and directed the Seven Keys, which is based on George M. Cohan‘s play after a pop novel by Earl Derr Biggers. Hanreddy set it in a remote Wisconsin summer lodge in the dead of winter. He loaded it with Wisconsinist lingo — “Well slap my behind and call me Susan” says the gruff sheriff — and stock characters from the 1930s films. Imagine William Powell in The Thin Man Goes Up Nort’ Aina.

But the main character is an author, not a detective. He retreats to the deserted lodge to win a bet by writing a novel in 24 hours. Assorted colorful locals –femme fatale, ingenue, crazy hermit, thugs, deputies, a corrupt politician and tycoon — intrude. The author sinks deeper and deeper into an increasingly complicated and bizarre plot. Soon, bullets and punchlines fly and ricochet about designer Michael Ganio’s dead-ringer Wisconsin lodge.

Costume designer Martha Hally, likewise, got the period and the style just right. The women look lovely in their stylish ’30s outfits, which telegraph character in precisely the way of movies from the era. Deborah Staples is the Bad Girl, in a narrow black skirt and just a little too much makeup. Lee Stark, in eggshell tweeds, blond wig and jaunty crocheted beret, is the very picture of the sweet but spunky Good Girl.

Under Hanreddy’s deft direction, all 13 actors slipped gracefully through the eye of the needle. They have to play to vintage Hollywood types, they have to believe in them as characters, but they also have to project the actorly fun of playing those characters. They played to one another — not to the house — and thus formed a delicious, frankly artificial little world.

A play such as this constantly tells you that none of this is real; its charm lies in the seamless consistency of unreality. You don’t worry about the characters in a piece such as this; you don’t grieve when they’re shot. There’s no angst. The idea is to enjoy the artifice, the snappy dialogue, the wit, the rhythm of it, and to enjoy the actors grooving on all of that. Hanreddy gave them plenty to groove on, and this superb cast made the most of it. They hit their characters’ bullseyes, meshed with effortless precision, and paced the show just right — plenty of momentum but no disheveled haste.

The effortless, amazing Brian Vaughn is the ringmaster, as would-be author William Magee. This would have been William Powell’s role back in the day. Imagine Kevin Spacey channeling Powell and you’ll get some idea of Vaughn’s easy elegance of speech and gesture, his ways of throwing away a line and projecting the subtle reactions. Vaughn might be the wittiest actor I know, and he is pitch-perfect for this role.

Hanreddy’s plot is engaging throughout. It’s almost plausible until late in the show, when it seems to jump the shark. A clever twist near the end brings you back to reality, but wait! Hanreddy has one more rug to pull out from under you. At the very end, after a twist I guarantee you won’t see coming, you’re alone with an author, smiling along with him because he’s just dreamed up a heckuva yarn.

Also in this wonderful cast: Lee F. Ernst, Torrey Hanson, Laura Gordon, Peter Silbert, Jonathan Gillard Daily, James Pickering, Steve Pickering, Gerard Neugent, Rob Glidden and Dylan Sanders.

Seven Keys to Slaughter Peak runs through April 18 in the Powerhouse Theater. Click here for ticket information, or call The Rep box office, 414-224-9490.