It is in Mexico, where Guy is vacationing with his girlfriend, Anne [Alexandra Staden], that Guy first learns that Bruno was not jesting. Anne gets a phone call from her father that indicates that Guy's wife has been murdered.
Guy thinks it must be a coincidence. But then, the phone calls start. And the letters. Bruno gives him all the gory details. What's worse, he starts pestering Guy to live up to his end of the deal. Bruno keeps at him until Guy finally does the unthinkable, and murders Bruno's father, just as Bruno had planned.
Anne and Guy marry. Bruno shows up at the wedding, univited. Guy is not pleased to see him and much alarmed that Bruno has jeopardised both of their safety, for now there is a wedding picture of the two of them together.
Bruno's father has a detective on staff named Gerard [Michael Elywn]. He remembers the Haines murder. And he becomes suspicious when dates do not tie out when he questions Bruno and Guy about where they met. He traces the dates back to the train to Metcalf and figures out the rest from there. He confronts Bruno on the murders, while his mother listens in the next room. Gerard takes himself off the case. He decides not to turn either of them in, because as he says, 'Guy Haines - if I'm right - has paid dearly for what he's done. He'll always be paying for it. And you, well...you're not likely to do anything like that again, are you? So why should I send you to prison? The truth is you are already there.'
Bruno's mother sympathises with Bruno, but she says he is not to ever come to her again. Bruno who has always depended heavily on his mother, is now lost and alone, so he turns to Guy. Guy tells him this is the last time they will ever see each other again, because he has written the whole story down for Anne to read. That he is free of the crime at last, no matter what happens after.
Cut off permanently from his Mother and his beloved liquor, when Bruno realises that Guy will never be his, he shoots himself with Guy's gun.
In the end, though now she fully informed of what he has done, Anne comes and takes Guy by the hand and takes him back to their life. And thanks to the stage directions, we know that, as promised, Guy did go on to build his wedding present to Anne, the white bridge, 'with white arcs and white beams and white stone, white everything - like a bridge made out of light'.
Craig Warner is a very good writer. The dialogue flows effortlessly and rings true. I like the fact that every time, Bruno says something stupid or obnoxious, Guy Haines [Stephen] just laughs at him. I can see Stephen doing that. Can't you?! Stephen has a lot of lines and Guy is a very likeable character, wish I had SEEN it!!!!
If you wish to read this play, you can order it from amazon.com.uk . If you wish to perform this play, you should contact Samuel French Ltd., 52 Fitzroy, London W1T 5JR, for the amateur rights. The professional rights are controlled by ICM [International Creative Management], 76 Oxford Street, London W1N 0AX.
If you didn't get to see this play [I didn't], and you only had the critics' reviews to rely on, you would think this play was a suspense/murder mystery. While that is an element, what 'Strangers on A Train' really is, is a love story. The one theme that comes across loud and clear is that true love conquers all. Bruno says it best. He says, '...no-one could feel about me the way you feel about Anne, or the way Anne feels about you.' Through it all Anne is there for him and in the end, it is Anne that comes to fetch him and bring him home, back to his life.
The play starts with Guy Haines [Stephen] traveling to arrange his divorce, from his unfaithful, creativity-stifling wife. He meets Bruno [Alan Cox] on the train. Bruno is rich, spoiled; used to getting what he wants. He spots Guy and he draws Guy into telling him things by saying, 'You can trust me. You'll never see me again. You can tell me anything.' Bruno is obviously drunk, and seems harmless, so Guy does just that. He tells him all about his wife's affair and his new project and how he is afraid his wife will ruin that project for him. Bruno tells Guy about his father controls him. Bruno, in seeming jest, suggests that maybe it would be the perfect murder for them to swap victims. Guy thinking he is joking, laughs along and says, 'Sure!' He never expects to see or hear from Bruno again.
Guy finds he can't work; that his attitude towards work has changed. Guy Haines was a creative architect, that loved to draw. Anne tells us that he drew all the time, on napkins, on scraps of paper, whatever was available. But now drawing is unthinkable to him. As a child, his one big dream was to build a white bridge, 'with white arcs and white beams and white stone, white everything - like a bridge made out of light'., the bridge that he promises Anne as a wedding present before they are married. But when that very project is offered to him by his friend Robert Treacher [William Oxborrow], he turns it down. Anne knows something is terribly wrong, but Guy won't tell her what.
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