The Mousetrap Will Keep You Guessing Until the Very End at the Guthrie Theater

The cast of The Mousetrap Photo by Dan Norman

The Guthrie Theater’s production of The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie is a luxuriant, thrilling, and witty production of one of the greatest mystery plays of all time. I’m a huge Christie fan, so I try and see any adaptation or play of hers that comes along. That usually ends up meaning that I just see the annual Christie adaptation at Theatre In the Round. But, lately there seems to have been an upswing in Christie productions including a wonderful adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express two years ago at the Guthrie, but also productions at Park Square Theatre and Yellow Tree Theatre. The Mousetrap has been playing in London’s West End for over 70 years since it opened in 1952, making it the longest running play in history. I have seen the play twice before, first when my college mounted it about 30 years ago, and then more recently when Lyric Arts staged a production in 2022. In 2022 I couldn’t remember the solution of who the killer is, but my memory isn’t so poor that it has faded from my mind in just three years. The plus for audiences to this production is, that unless you’ve seen the play performed before, read the play or had some rotter spoil it for you, you’ll be going in blind. You see part of the original contract for the play states that no film adaptation can be produced until at least six months after the West End production has closed. One begins to suspect there will never be a film of The Mousetrap. Given that, I’m going to give very little detail of the plot as I do not want to inadvertently tip anyone to the solution. The Mousetrap is a well plotted mystery full of red herrings and plot twists. It’s a great whodunnit with a nice amount of character driven humor along for the ride.

The setting is an English Manor which a newlywed couple is converting into a guesthouse, this would be what we would consider a boarding house I suppose, as bedrooms and common rooms are provided along with all of the meals. They have four guests arriving for their first week in business. Those four will be joined by a mysterious guest who is seeking shelter after his car is stranded in the blizzard that will soon cut off the residents of Monkswell Manor from the outside world. They will be joined by a police Sergeant who makes an heroic attempt to reach them via skis as the police believe that one of the people now at Monkswell Manor is a murderer!!!! Each of the guests seems to have something to hide making it near impossible to guess who’s in danger and who is a danger.

The Guthrie’s cast is superb and Director Tracy Brigden stages the action very effectively. Monette Magrath making her Guthrie Debut joins local favorite Peter Christian Hansen as Mollie and Giles Ralston, the proprietors who have their hands full running a new and unfamiliar business as well as dealing with difficult and eccentric customers. For instance, Mo Perry who plays Mrs. Boyle, possibly the most contrary and judgemental old biddy in England, plays it so perfectly that you get a little thrill everytime someone upsets her. My favorite is the over the top in just the right way, Greg Cuellar as Christopher Wren the architect, but not that architect, Christopher Wren. He’s a bundle of affectations that endears him to the audience and Mollie, but rubs the manly Giles the wrong way. Cuellar is the most out there character of the group and he doesn’t hold back in his performance, and as such brings the most humor to the show. Matthew Saldivar plays Mr. Paravicini, a mysterious foreigner seeking shelter from the storm. Another very stylized performance but one that belies an intelligence rather than eccentricity, he is also a source of much comic relief, but of a more sophisticated and witty type. Matthew Amendt plays Detective Sergeant Trotter who arrives to save the day only to find a house full of people who refuse to be up front with him, putting their lives at risk by keeping secrets. Amendt, plays the Detective with mounting exasperation, he is trying his best to root out the killer before he or she can strike again, but continually discovers that secrets are being kept from him.

The scenic design by Walt Spangler is stunning in every detail. If it’s one thing the Guthrie Theater has over most others in the Twin Cities area, the space and resources to really wow us from a production standpoint. It has to be seen to be believed, the photo above looks great, but doesn’t do it justice. I sat in the front row, a location I highly recommend, and the vastness of the set, the ceiling that seems to be four stories above the stage was an awesome visual. But it’s success was also in the details, such as the snow falling outside the Great Hall windows, the light and smoke from the fireplace. Every technical element was superbly realized including John Gromada’s sound designs and musical compositions. The lighting design by Rui Rita and the wonderful period costumes by Susan Tsu. I especially loved Tsu’s various costumes for the flamboyant Christopher Wren.

If you’ve never seen The Mousetrap it would be hard to imagine a better introduction to it than this. The stunning set populated by this wonderful cast brings the classic whodunit to life in a very rewarding way. Fans of Mysteries and thrillers will find this ingenious script keeps them guessing right up until the end. Just remember, once you learn the truth, you must keep it to yourself just as audiences have been doing for 70 years! The Mousetrap runs through May 18th at the Guthrie Theater in Downtown Minneapolis. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://www.guthrietheater.org/shows-and-tickets/2024-2025-season/the-mousetrap/

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The Unexpected Guest Keeps the Audience Guessing Right till the End at Theatre in the Round

Corinne Nobili and Sam Sweere Photo by Aaron Mark Photo Film

The Unexpected Guest is this years annual Agatha Christie play at Theatre in the Round Players in Minneapolis. Faithful readers will know that I’m a bit of an Agatha Christie devotee and as such, I always catch these productions. Usually because I am such a fan, I know the solution to the mystery either before it begins or after a few minutes it comes back to me. What I loved about this production is that because it is a play and not an adaptation of one of her novels, and a play I haven’t seen, I didn’t have the fore knowledge that I usually do. The play starts off after the murder has occured. An unexpected stranger named Michael Starkwedder who has run his car into the ditch due to the extreme fog of the night enters a house in the country in search of a telephone and discovers the body of Richard Warwick. He also discovers the victims beautiful wife Laura standing in the dark holding a gun and ready to confess to the murder. Taken in by her beauty he decides to try and help her cover up the crime and throw suspicion on another man who has a motive. But if it were that simple it would be a episode of Columbo where we know who the killer is and the suspense will be if he gets away with it or not. To be honest that’s more or less what I thought we were getting. The first Act does feel like it’s moving a little slowly. But then, not only does the other shoe drop, a whole shoe rack falls and at least half of the cast at one point or another you’re certain is the killer. When the final curtain falls you can’t even be certain you really knew whodunnit, but in a very satisfying way.

Director Dr. Mary Cutler does a nice job of staging the show, she never allows the cast to telegraph too far in advance the next twist and turn in the plot. I especially appreciated a scene between Laura played by Corinne Nobili and family friend Julian Farrar played by Mark A. McCarthy that Cutler orchestrates so that the penny drops just a few beats for the audience before the characters catch on. It’s a moment well played by Nobili and McCarthy and it changes everything for the audience and the characters, who up until that moment, think they know what has happened. There is also a great scene between Kathleen Winters as Miss Bennett who has been with the family for years and seems to care for her scene partner Pharaoh Jones’ character, Jan the younger brother of the victim, and who is not playing with a full deck. Winters conveys Miss Bennett’s bravery and fear in equal measure as she tries to calm but also draw out the excitable Jan, it’s a very tense and effective scene with Jones playing unstable very convincingly. Sam Sweere is very charming as Michael Starkwedder, that classic Christie character type, the outsider who stumbles into something that is none of his affair but feels compelled to try and help (see Murder is Easy and Ordeal by Innocence).

The Unexpected Guest isn’t as iconic as The Mouse Trap or Murder on the Orient Express, but what it has over those is that many of us don’t know the story or the solution and that is great fun and a rare thing for an Agatha Christie fan. I had a great time with it and debating the end with my fellow theatergoers afterwards. If you like a good twisty mystery this will not disappoint. The Unexpected Guest runs through December 22nd at Theatre in the Round Players. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://www.theatreintheround.org/the-unexpected-guest/

Holmes/Poirot Gets Long Awaited World Premiere at Park Square Theatre Proves Worth the Wait

David Andrew Macdonald, Stacia Rice, Daniel Petzold, Bob Davis, Steve Hendrickson Photo by Rich Ryan

Holmes/Poirot the new play from local favorite Jeffrey Hatcher and Steve Hendrickson finally takes the stage at Park Square Theatre where it was originally scheduled as their annual Summer whodunnit in 2023. To be clear, the delay was to do with Park Square’s Financial struggles, which appear thankfully to be righted, and not an issue with the play itself. This play along with Hatcher’s Holmes and Watson are the most satisfying and clever bits of Sherlockian fiction to come along in a long time. I don’t keep up on all the Holmes pastiches but I’ve read a few over the last year, such as the most recent Nicholas Meyer Novels and Robert J. Harris’s A Study in Crimson. For sheer cleverness and enjoyment, nothing tops Hatchers ingenious mysteries. As with Holmes and Watson, the tag line left me unsure how well it would work. For Holmes Poirot it reads:

“Sherlock Holmes never lost a case. Or did he? In this new mystery Holmes comes up against his most diabolical adversary in a tale of intrigue, international politics, wine and murder. And he’s stymied. Enter Hercule Poirot 25 years later to investigate a new crime that rhymes with the first.”
Park Square Theatre Website

It reads like Holmes fails and Poirot comes in and solves it 25 years later, implying he’s the greater detective, which wasn’t what I wanted to see. In the end, while the tag line isn’t entirely disingenuous, in Act One Holmes doesn’t fail to solve the crime, he makes a choice to not reveal the solution, and that reason feels valid to Baker Street fans. Poirot solves another mystery all together in Act two and is aided by information from Holmes’ earlier case. Like the earlier Holmes and Watson, the script itself elements that turn those synopsis on their heads and lead you to twists not guessed at beforehand. Its been probably a decade since I finished my David Suchet Poirot watch, but parts of the Act Two felt like they were inspired by elements from the Christie Stories, the Golfing, the Tramp, the competition between Poirot and Inspector Giraud, I can’t remember if they all come from the same story or if they’re all separate elements from different stories. But it gave Act Two an authentic Christie feel, that felt as different in style from Act One as Conan Doyle’s writing does to Agatha Christie.

There is so much to love about the casting of this show. First the ingenious casting of Steve Hendrickson and Bob Davis in dual roles in which they swap playing the detective and the sidekick during the two Acts. Hendrickson plays Holmes with Davis as his Watson, roles they have played before. In Act Two Davis plays the detective Hercule Poirot with Hendrickson as his Captain Hastings. Perhaps surprisingly give their histories as Holmes and Watson, I enjoyed them even more as Poirot and Hastings. It’s perhaps the nature of the characters, there is a little more to do with the latter, as they are a tad more emotional and colorful duo. Davis’s Watson in the solid by the book gentleman Doctor, his Poirot is witty, and eccentric. Hendrickson’s Holmes is logical and a bit unemotional, whereas his Captain Hastings has more in common with Bertie Wooster than John Watson. These are fun characterizations made even more enjoyable by watching the complete changes these two leads make between the two acts. Other treats in the casting department, it’s great to see Daniel Petzold back at Park Square where he first drew our attention in Airness and Holmes and Watson. David Andrew Macdonald, who was brilliant last year in the Guthrie Theater’s Jeffrey Hatcher adaptation of Dial M for Murder, then stuck around to help out in the History plays, hopefully this means he’s decided to stay in town and add to our pool of Twin Cities Talent. Also nice to see the return of Stacia Rice to the stage, who gives a wonderful performance and is the one Actor who plays the same character in both Acts.

For mystery fans, Sherlockians, and Poirot devotees Holmes/Poirot will feel like Christmas came early. The show runs through November 3rd at Park Square Theatre in St. Paul. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://parksquaretheatre.org/box-office/20242025-season

Towards Zero At Theatre in the Round Players in Minneapolis

Theatre in the Round traditionally produces an Agatha Christie play around the holidays. The holidays of course being Thanksgiving, my Mother’s birthday and Christmas. I’ve been taking my Mother for her birthday present since 2015’s production of Black Coffee, which was also my first time to Theatre in the Rounds arena. The theatre is well suited for Christie’s mysteries which are generally speaking set in one location. A mystery played out in 360 degrees means that the audience sees everything and the director must play the game fairly. The theater is small and intimate, and these are the types of light breezy entertainments that they do well. Even from the back row, which I was seated in due to a box office snafu, one should be able to hear and see everything.

This years production is Towards Zero and it has something of an interesting backstory. Agatha Christie is the best selling fiction author of all time. Alongside her many novels and short stories she wrote 33 plays, many of them are adaptations of her novels or stories. Towards Zero was a novel first, it was adapted by Christie and Gerald Verner into a play in 1956 and that script has been produced many times over the years. But it turns out it was not the first adaptation. In 2015, discovered in the Christie archives was an earlier adaptation which Christie wrote herself, this is the script used for this production. As a Christie fan I usually find that I am familiar with the story of the plays being produced and therefore know the solution. With Towards Zero I couldn’t remember the solution and so from a script standpoint this had the added benefit of being a whodunnit that contained an actual whodunnit.

The play takes place at Gull’s Nest, the home of Lady Tressilian located on a cliff overlooking the sea. The household consists of a Butler O’Donnell, his nemesis lady Tressilians’ nurse MacGregor, and her companion Collie. Into the mix are added her ward Neville Strange, his new wife Kay and ex-wife Audrey, as well as Audrey’s childhood friend Thomas, and Kay’s boyfriend Peter De Costa. Adding a dark horse to the company is Angus McWhirter a man who a year previously tried to commit suicide by jumping from the cliff only to be foiled by an outcropping. When the murder of lady Tressilian takes place between Act 1 and Act 2 there are plenty of suspects to keep the audience guessing. Enter Inspector Leach, Sergeant Harvey, and Dr. Wilson to gather the clues and try and solve the crime.

Christie’s script is unusually long with each act running close to one and a quarter hours. It didn’t feel drawn out to me, but several of my party did feel it was too long. I felt the time was used to develop the characters and give us plenty of information with which to lead us to suspect everyone. It isn’t much of a whodunnit if there are only a couple of viable suspects. The mystery involved in Towards Zero is full of twists and red herrings enough to keep the audience second guessing up until the final reveal. Everything is up in the air including in a way who the victim and detective are. The play is directed by Wendy Resch Novak who does a good job of staging the action on the floor as well as the cliffside up at the top of one of the risers. It’s effective and creative use of the space, giving us an expanded geography that serves the play well. The set designer Laurie Swigart Does a nice job of suggesting the clifftop and the terrace of Gull’s Nest. One issue with the set though were the doors to the house they never closed all the way, not sure if this should have been a stronger direction to the actors or if it was a design flaw.

Excellent script and set design, well staged, it is in the casting and characterizations where the production stumbles slightly. Kristen C. Mathisen performance as Lady Tressilian was so good that you spend the rest of the play after her murder wishing the victim had been someone else. Mathisen brings this character to life with such humor and intelligence, she is nearly the most well rounded character in the piece despite being off stage much of the time and being killed off before Act 2 begins. Chief among the candidates to take her place as victim would be Neville Strange played by Ben Habel. Habel is not up to the task, this is a small theater and everyone I spoke with afterward had trouble hearing about half of his dialogue. This is not a large theater, if Habel isn’t able to project so that his lines can be heard, perhaps he should have been mic’d. Thankfully, that was not an issue with any of the other performers. There’s nothing like a whodunnit where you miss half the clues because you cannot hear them. Dwight Gunderson and Stacey Poirier as O’Donnell and MacGregor have a playful humor similar to Mathisen’s Tressilian, and make their warring servants a welcome bit of comedic relief whenever they are onstage together. James Degner as Dr. Wilson makes little impression, the character is woefully underwritten, he’s needed to provide some of the clues, but isn’t given much else to do, there are a few moments where you get the sense there was supposed to be a joke or witticism, but it’s lost.

The rest of the actors are well cast and do fine work but there are two roles that I want to take a closer look at. Mark L. Mattison as Angus McWhirter and Piper Quinn as Audrey. Mattison Has turned in several memorable performances at Theatre in the Round over the last few years. Here again he has found the comic timing and performance style to make his character a stand out. He mines the part for humor that may not have been intended by Christie but is certainly entertaining. He delivers his lines in a near shout throughout but is also a bit philosophical. Quinn plays her role as a woman on edge and frightened, someone in need of help. The two characters have a few scenes together which as scripted are somewhat asides to the plot. They are meant to develop a connection between the two characters, the first scene works more or less but based on where their relationship needs to go, it probably needed to cement the connection more. The second scene doesn’t build on the connection enough. That combined with Mattison’s characterization, make the last moments of the play feel forced. McWhirter is such an eccentric that it is hard to fathom the dynamic that the plot tells us has developed. There are lines in the play that lead us to that moment, but the actors don’t play it that way, creating a disconnect rather than a connection. It’s too bad, because it ends the play awkwardly and it makes you question one of the more enjoyable performances and whether that was the right direction in spite of how entertaining it was.

Towards Zero is good mystery play with some nice humor and lots of clues to keep you guessing. There are some performance issues which made the play seem long for some and one of the key relationships rang false for this reviewer. It plays through December 15th for for information and tickets go to http://www.theatreintheround.org/new-homepage/on-stage/zero/