Most suspenseful play you've seen? — Page 2

I can only nod my head in agreement with Pillowman (my first McDonagh exposure) and Topdog/Underdog

I'm not sure How I Learned to Drive was "suspenseful" per se, but it certainly had me uncomfortably squirming in my seat!

Even the worst, most amateur-hour productions of Hamlet still hold one's interest simply because the suspense is so well-structured.

Coram Boy

Deathtrap & The Shining City.

The Innocents

The Pillowman

Let the Right One In.

Jarethan said: "The Pillowman was an incredible theatregoing experience. It definitely gave me the creeps. Lee Remick in Wait Until Dark definitely received the loudest audience screams I have witnessed. This list makes me realize that there really have not been a lot of good suspense plays."

I am too young by a few years to have seen Wait Until Dark with Lee Remick and Robert Duvall, though I did see the movie (with my parents) a couple of years later. Remick and Duvall had screen pedigree so it's interesting that they were not cast in the film (well, Duvall's pedigree came a little later though he is great in To Kill A Mockingbird), but one can't complain about Hepburn and Arkin in the film. That climax brought a collective scream out of the audience in the movie theatre! I imagine it was unforgettable live.

I saw Woman in Black, and by intermission I had to leave. Waaaaay too creepy for me.

Death and the Maiden: those final twenty minutes

Seeing Glenn Close in Knives Out: Wake Up Dead Man made me think she would be an excellent Helga ten Dorp in Deathtrap. Probably too small a role.

Perhaps I was reminded by seeing the great Brían F. O'Byrne this week playing the kind, hermitty widower on Netflix’s The Abandons. A gory new soapy mini-series worth watching for the cowboy hats alone on Gillian Anderson and Lena Headley but I digress.

One of my most suspenseful theater memories was from watching O’Byrne play the pedophile serial killer in Bryony Lavery's powerful play Frozen back in 2004 at Circle in the Square. It was directed by Doug Hughes and also starred Swoosie Kurtz and Laila Robins. Kurtz plays the mother of one of his victims who visits him in prison. Robins, as the psychiatrist, provides an outsider’s observation.

It was chilling and unforgettable.

njguy2 said: "Medea with Fiona Shaw"

I would also say Medea, though mine would be the BAM production with Rose Byrne and Bobby Cannavale. On a similar note, I would add current production of Oedipus. The fact that both were more of a modernization added to this - of course I knew what tragic end the story was heading toward, but it was how it would play out in each context that kept me engaged. With Medea, it was waiting until Anna (Byrne's modern Medea) finally snapped, like waiting for a collision that you were powerless to stop; with Oedipus - especially with the on-stage countdown - it was literally knowing a bomb was going to go off, while everyone went about their business unaware that something catastrophic was going to occur, waiting for both that moment and the aftermath.

Deathtrap and Grey House.