Through Sun 3/3
A shotgun wedding — an Agatha Christie thriller combined with playwright Ken Ludwig’s sense of the ridiculous — makes for a mystery-packed comedy production of Murder on the Orient Express at Great Lakes Theater.
While it may sound lovely to ride on an elegantly decorated express train from Istanbul to Paris, our story makes it obvious it is a mistake to ride anywhere with mystery writer Christie’s Detective Hercule Poirot. Trouble is bound to follow, at least in this well-paced play directed by Charles Fee.
That is not to say it is not lovely to sit in the Great Lakes Theater and watch all the trouble in action. It is. The gorgeous see-through show curtain designed by Rick Martin told us, even before the show began, that we were to be whisked away on a glamourous journey.
After a quick café scene, we are on a beautifully decorated and very fancy train. As the stunning set rotates (thank you to the crew who pushes it), each turn reveals secrets and action. It is as if we could see through walls (oh wait, we can). Scenic and lighting designer Martin and costume designer Esther M. Haberlen offer an elegant introduction to an early 1920s golden era (for some) when a trip from one romantic capital to another, in this case Istanbul to Paris, was in vogue.
It is not giving away too much to say that when the handsome but rude Samuel Ratchett (Anthony Michael Martinez) is discovered in his train compartment sporting multiple stab wounds, everyone on the train realizes there is a murderer in their midst. The train is snowbound so no police can be called. Thus the hunt is on, and Detective Poirot’s carefree excursion is ruined. Now he must solve the mystery — which, of course, he does, but not without giving everyone on the Orient Express time to expose their own trauma first.
David Anthony Smith as Hercule Poirot made the detective’s observations clear, thus letting us have the fun of joining his investigation. Each passenger on the luxury train turned out to be unique (and quirky). The travelers were portrayed by Eva Wielgat Barnes (the sophisticated Princess Dragomiroff), Angela Utrera (an elegant Countess Andrenyi), Laura Welsh Berg (the clueless Mary Debenham), Jodi Dominick (the humble Greta Ohlsson), Jeffrey C. Hawkins (Poirot’s friend, Monsieur Bouc), Jillian Kates (stereotypical American, Helen Hubbard), as well as James Alexander Rankin (as Hector MacQueen) and Nick Steen (as Colonel Arbuthnot).
Others who helped move the train-based mystery along (at times literally) included Jerrell Williams (as the conductor Michel), plus Luke Brett, Casey Casimir, Jake Diller (engineers), and also Grace Feidt, M.A. Taylor, Alex Mandelson, and Aaron Warrow.
Bottom Line: A beautifully assembled trip on the Orient Express. Adventure, clever detective work and a moral dilemma all rolled into one.
[Written by Laura Kennelly]
