Carol Roscoe (Emma Cunningham) and George Millenbach (Harvey Burdell) in a scene from the Brooklyn Lyceum's "31 Bond."

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Harvey Burdell, a confirmed bachelor and a prosperous dentist, was found stabbed to death in his home on Bond Street, in Manhattan, in 1857.

Emma Cunningham, whom he had both courted and employed as the manager of his property, was acquitted of the crime at trial. The murder had all the juicy elements over which media tends to salivate: greed, passion and infidelity.

If these facts alone were not enough to make the incident a cause celebre, more messy details included Cunningham’s unsuccessful lawsuit against Burdell (before the murder) for breach of promise to marry her, her attempt to feign a pregnancy (claiming it was Burdell’s child), and her faked wedding to Burdell (with a stand-in) - all so she could inherit Burdell’s estate.

What’s more, throughout the trial, there were hints of a homosexual relationship between Burdell and a third party, who completed the scandalous triangle.

The incident was largely lost to history, but it is recorded in Jeffrey I. Richman’s non-fiction "Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery" (Stinehour Press, 1998). Playwright Michele Aldin based "31 Bond" on Richman’s account of Burdell’s murder. (Burdell is buried in an unmarked grave in Sunset Park’s Green-Wood Cemetery.)

The play is the first in the "Only the Dead" series, which dramatizes the stories of people buried in Green-Wood. Brooklyn Lyceum owner Eric Richmond is producing the series in association with the cemetery.

Aldin tells the story of the Burdell murder in a series of flashbacks punctuated by scenes based on the testimony of acquaintances of both the victim and the defendant during the coroner’s inquest. Every trial scene is introduced by Coroner Connery (John Alban Coughlan), pushing a rolling platform with a chair onstage. Although this device is initially dramatic, it soon grows tedious. Once the witnesses are seated, Coughlan questions them in dramatic tones that would have made Clarence Darrow blush.

The flashbacks trace the relationship of Burdell (George Millenbach) and Cunningham (Carol Roscoe) from their first meeting while each was vacationing in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., to their final, bloody breakup. The flashbacks also quite graphically reproduce for the audience’s benefit scenes illustrating the nature of Burdell’s alliance with his lover, Morris Zagler (Avery Clark).

If the play had been limited to trial and flashback scenes, it might have unfolded as a riveting psychological drama. But Aldin and director Julie Fei-Fan Balzer have chosen to include many creative flourishes that add little but repetition.

Zagler is periodically visited by the ghost of Burdell’s preachy, puritanical mother (Ruth Kulerman), who for some reason has chosen to plague not her son, who cannot see her, but his lover, who can’t get rid of her.

Cunningham, too, has a personal ghost - her deceased husband, George (Jason Heil), a violent lout who calls her a whore ready to go to any lengths to ensure her financial security.

Both ghosts emerge from and disappear behind a scrim at the back of the stage. Add to that dramatic lighting that alternates with blackouts, and many in the audience may be seriously waiting for a magician to materialize onstage - complete with magic wand and top hat - although perhaps not a bunny rabbit.

Even with these unnecessary ghosts and their disruptive entrances and exits, the action might have accelerated if Balzer had not dwelt so lovingly on Clark and Millenbach’s love, or perhaps lust, scenes. The director seems to be testing or perhaps exploiting contemporary audiences’ acceptance of gay love. But once she has established the nature of the men’s relationship, in this case, less might have meant more.

Long love scenes on film are seen through the eye of a director and an editor, who can, if done right, make motions flow like music. Even the most graphic films fall into one of two tolerable categories: porn or art - depending on your point of view. But the stage is not so kind. Clark and Millenbach’s nuzzling, nibbling and groping is embarrassingly explicit - not erotic.

"31 Bond" runs for almost three hours with a 15-minute intermission. With a bit more discipline, it could easily be trimmed down to a two-hour production. Perhaps such a cut would allow the audience to focus on the superb acting of every member of the cast. It would also turn the play from a self-indulgent soap opera into the thriller it was meant to be.

"31 Bond" plays Thursdays and Fridays at 8 pm, Saturdays at 7 pm, and Sundays at 3 pm. Tickets are $20 at the door, $15 online at www.gowanus.com, and $15 for students and seniors through Dec. 31. Beginning Jan 1, tickets will be $40 at the door, $30 online and $15 for students and seniors.

The Brooklyn Lyceum is located at 227 Fourth Ave. at President Street in Park Slope. For more information, call (718) 866-GOWANUS or (718) 857-4816.

©2002 The Brooklyn Paper