STAGE REVIEW : Things Not What They Seem in ‘Imagination’ : In the Way Off Broadway Playhouse’s presentation, the dynamite second act of this whodunit makes the turgid first act well worth the wait.

Renowned British author Arthur Putnam is sitting in his living room with his wife, Julia--he’s reading, she’s writing, both seem to be living their quiet, uneventful lives in the epitome of comfort.

But this is just Act I in Bernard Slade’s “An Act of the Imagination,” and as a whodunit, naturally, things are never quite what they seem.

The Way Off Broadway Playhouse’s ultimately gripping presentation begins slowly to establish the plodding dullness of the Putnam household. The intentionally turgid setup, emphasized by director Carole Cooney’s carefully controlled pacing, paves the way for the second act’s myriad complications that, while they strain credibility, finally dispel the initial dramatic tedium.

That ennui is quickly shattered by a Gypsy-looking woman who barges into the Putnams’ comfortable, middle-class Hampstead home and tries to blackmail Arthur’s wife to the tune of 5,000.

Naturally, the Gypsy winds up dead. The mystery here is as much what was really done as who really dunit.

The dynamite second act, however, effectively turns inside-out any expectations the audience may have had about the answers to those questions.

The problem is that to reveal much about it would spoil the play’s unbelievable ending. Suffice it to say it has something to do with a string of plot twists and turns--including an incestuous duo, fake bullets in a gun where real ones were supposed to be and a victim who may or may not be a victim--that eventually lead to the question of whether it was all a dream, an act of someone’s imagination.

The Way Off Broadway production picks up locomotive speed after intermission and pulls these tangled threads together in awesome fashion, making the denouement well worth the patience Slade requires of audiences who sit through his first act.

As Arthur, Theodore F. Dubuc is stodgy, egocentric and overbearing: a good choice. Marcia Bonnitz, as dutiful wife, Julia, and Brian McCoy, as son Simon, deliver a power-paced gear shift for Act II’s startling transformation of what, in Act I, appeared to be a standard mother-son relationship.

The cast’s tentative, often-varying English accents become a little grating at times, and there’s the occasional carelessness with detail--what Julia served at tea time was a biscuit, not a scone. The setting is Laura Ashley-cozy, and the rest of the performances generally are crisp.

‘AN ACT OF THE IMAGINATION’

A Way Off Broadway production of the Bernard Slade play. Directed by Carole Cooney. With Theodore F. Dubuc, Marcia Bonnitz, Brian McCoy, Richard Huisman, Laura Williams, Marnelle Ross, Connie Misen. Producer: Tony Reverditto. Technical director: Del DePierro. Sound design: Steve Schmidt. Light designer: Cathy Langston. Set designer: Carole Cooney. Plays at 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays through June 22 (no performances June 6-8). Tickets $12.50. At Way Off Broadway Playhouse, 1058 E. 1st St., Santa Ana. (714) 547-8997.