Pack of Lies at Long Beach Playhouse

Spies. Not too long ago, the word felt like kind of an old fashioned concept, something you only hear about in movies. But lately, talk of espionage is all over the news. So it's the perfect time to see a fresh take on a classic Cold War thriller with Long Beach Playhouse's production of Pack of Lies. All the more tense for its basis in reality, this psychological thriller centers on an English couple whose lives are turned upside-down when Scotland Yard alerts them that their next-door neighbors might be Soviet spies, and enlists them to set a trap. Called "absolutely engrossing ... dynamic theater" (New York Post), Hugh Whitemore's play is high-tension drama in the tradition of Graham Greene and John LeCarre.