Tacoma Little Theatre's staging of the classic tale of crime and betrayal, Dial "M" for Murder, draws your eye chiefly to three things: a telephone positioned on a desk by a window, an apartment's front door looming in the background and a green handbag resting on a davenport. These three ingredients, coordinated in symphony, are the most powerful chess pieces in a play that is less a "whodunit," as the program notes, and more of an exploration of what happens after "it" has been done.

I'm not proud to say that much of Alfred Hitchcock's canon remains unseen by me, but it did help with reviewing this play, which was notably adapted by the filmmaker. Still, the mystery of this play isn't who killed whom and how. The details of the titular murder are set up in fine detail, as explained from one man (a jealous husband) to another (an ex-convict old college acquaintance). This is hugely beneficial to the audience, knowing the full scope and intricacies of this plan, as we wait with tense anticipation to see it enacted, and to see where and when it might go wrong.

The basics of the case are thus: An American television mystery writer named Max Halliday (portrayed by Jacob Tice with the square-jawed tenacity befitting of the '40s setting) has been carrying on an affair with the married Margot Wendice (Deya Ozburn, doing a fine job portraying the anxiety of knowing you've found yourself in a no-win situation). Her husband, former tennis star Tony Wendice (Brent Griffith, dripping with smarm), has learned of their indiscretions and come up with a seemingly fool-proof way of remedying the situation, which involves calling up Captain Lesgate (Christopher Rocco, looking right boorish).

To give much more away would be a shame. The joy of the play comes with knowing full well exactly what happened, and in following certain characters as they exchange the burying and re-earthing of the truth. Because of our privy to the facts, the play has fun with giving us little nods and turning certain screws, adding levity to an otherwise rather straight-forward crime story. With the exception of the final summation by Inspector Hubbard (Robert Geller), which might illuminate one or two things not understood by the audience, the play doesn't ever condescend to its viewers.

The actors, by and large, do a fine job of wrangling their British accents and stilted '40s patois. Blake R. York, in charge of set design, leaves everything uncluttered, so that the things that matter truly come to the fore. As for the play itself, I will say that I tend to be a much bigger fan of the plan-gone-awry genre, as opposed to the whodunit. Watching people try and wriggle their way out of impossible circumstances - especially in a piece of work that respects its characters' intelligence as much as the audience's - can be more suspenseful and entertaining than any plan that did work out. It's a shame that anyone had to die along the way.

DIAL "M" FOR MURDER, 7:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, through Nov. 9, Tacoma Little Theatre, $15-$22, 253.272.2281