Your mother dies after a long illness and you are finally free to live your life – which is looking pretty good since she left you with a potential million dollar goldmine in stamps – what could possibly go wrong? Plenty, in Theresa Rebecks’s thriller Mauritius at Spokane’s Interplayers Professional Resident Theatre February 23 – March 10.

There is the older half-sister who has a claim on the stamp collection, there is the stamp expert who may or may not be acting honorably, and there is a duo of shady and perhaps violent characters who can charitably be described as “sketchy”. Rebeck puts them all together in a fast-moving adult funfest of double crosses and psychological gamesmanship that has left audiences gasping since its Broadway debut in 2007.

Rebeck is the creator and executive producer of the new hit drama series Smash on NBC and has a new play, Seminar, on Broadway. She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2004 for her play Omnium Gatherum. Talking to the New York Times about Mauritius in 2007 she said it represented the themes running through all her plays – “betrayal and treason and poor behavior. I’m interested in what drives people to poor behavior.”

Patrick Treadway will direct the play, which stars Bethany Hart, Jason Young, Damon Abdallah, Brian Edwards and Sarah Denison. Treadway says he sees a wonderful correlation between stamps and the people who are sometimes consumed with collecting them, “It’s the errors that make them valuable.”

Mauritius opens on Thursday, February 23. Evening performances at 7:30 p.m. are February 23, 24, 25, 29, March 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, and 10. Matinees at 2 p.m. are scheduled Sunday, February 26, Saturday March 3 and Saturday, March 10. Talkback discussions with the director and cast after the performance are set for February 26, 29 and March 8. The technical talkback which includes members of the production team discussing the technical aspects of the play before the performance will be at 6:45 p.m. on Thursday, March 1.

Interplayers is located at 174 S. Howard Street in downtown Spokane. Tickets are available at the box office, or by calling the theatre at 509-455-7529. Tickets are also available through Ticketswest at 800-325-7328 or www.ticketswest.com.