A Murder Is Announced

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

Kudos goes to Spotlight Theatre for giving their audience what they want, even though it is Agatha Christie’s A Murder Is Announced.

A scene from Spotlight’s production of A Murder Is Announced.

Christie remains a conundrum as to the popularity of her stories with one-dimensional paper doll characters. Holes in the stories make the scripts look like they have been used for target practice.

Be as it may, Director Pat Payne commented this is the fourth Christie play Spotlight produced, all playing to full houses. A Murder Is Announced is no exception, which is a very good thing for Spotlight.

Popular or not, I have to look at the production from a dramatic point of view. It is highly possible the Queen of Detective Novels ends up getting a bad wrap. Her stories are deliberately crammed with unnecessary details to confuse and intrigue fireplace sleuths caught up in wanting to solve the mystery. Perhaps, it is the playwrights who deserve the attention; in this case Leslie Darbon adapted A Murder Is Announced to the stage. By necessity, many of the details have to be left out of stage productions or the plays would run from dinner to breakfast. In the process, the stories are cut to the barest of bones honeycombed with enough holes to thrill an eager beehive looking for a place to store honey.

A Murder Is Announced takes place in Miss Blacklock’s drawing room in the English village of Chipping Cleg-horn.

Annie Reiplinger steps into the shoes of Miss Blacklock. For the most part, she performs a rather credible job. At the very beginning, the accent Reiplinger assigns to Miss Blacklock becomes too affected. The imposed thickness distracts from her words. During the course of the play, she does ease up, calming the thickness, allowing the accent more believability.

Miss Blacklock rents out rooms in her large country house including her niece, Julia Simmons (Janet Noble) and nephew, Patrick Simmons (David Hardison).

The action begins early in the morning on Friday the 13th. Miss Bunner, known as Bunny, (Nancy Thomas) rustles the calm morning because she can’t find the newspaper, rustling the calm morning even louder when she discovers Patrick reading it.

With explosive paranoid reaction, Bunny discovers a strange notice appearing in the Gazette: “A murder is announced and will take place at Little Paddocks, at 6:30 pm. Friends, please accept this, the only invitation.”

Who would place such an announcement in the newspaper, announcing a murder to take place at Miss Blacklock’s house? Is it a joke? Will thee really be a murder? Who will be the victim? Who will commit the murder?

Thomas gives a brilliant performance as Bunny, one of the most complete I have ever seen her give. Miss Bunner is a hyper, flibbertigibbet, explosive, neurotic, lost-in-the-woods forgetful lady. Whenever on stage, Thomas’s Bunny remains in perpetual motion, except, of course, when she is dead. (No, she isn’t the reason for the newspaper announcement.) Thomas takes Bunny out of the one-dimensional paper doll mode breathing commanding life into her. She’s wonderfully endearingly funny. Bunny wouldn’t consider herself funny. Those living with her find her to be a tad bit irritating. From across the boards, however, Bunny tells quite a different story.

Jillann Tafel as the Russian paranoid maid, Mitsi, gives a stunning performance when she is on fire, spitting out hair-brained stories. Along with the rest of the cast, when just there, in the background, Mitsi disappears leaving Tafel as an actor standing alone in a maid’s costume.

That’s what happens to one- dimensional paper doll characters. When the characters have nothing to do but sit or stand, they decide to go out for coffee, leaving the actors holding the bag.

It is clear the majority of the actors show strong talent. A small stage supporting eleven actors at one time poses a commanding challenge to director and actors. At the same time, it is a perfect opportunity for the actors to dig into the psyche of the characters asking serious questions. How would they sit? How would they stand? How would they walk? Do they slump? Are they nervous? Do they fiddle with their hair, with their clothes, check the tables for dust, play with something on a table, or dissect a picture on a wall? Take a group, any group; gathered in a home, someone is always doing something, especially if they are nervous. I would think if a murder has been announced, at a particular place, at a particular time, everyone would be wondering if the person sitting next to him or her is the murderer, and if they are going to be the victim. Human nature always wants to ask, “Is it me?”

Marion Rex takes on the busybody, slightly dingy, nosey, and sometimes irritating famous Christie detective, Miss Marple. Rex indeed has moments of capturing the character. She also has moments when Rex becomes inactive, and the character; Miss Marple leaves the stage to follow her nose on a lead. Miss Marple is not one who is going to sit back and do nothing.

As with all of the Christie stories, no one is who they say they are. In spite of that truth, I have a difficult time believing Miss Blacklock doesn’t recognize the fact Julia is not Julia, her niece. Even though she hasn’t seen her for a while, certainly there would be enough give-a-ways for her to be suspicious. This isn’t a production problem; it’s a script problem. In her attempt to signal a sense of sophisticated elegance, Noble’s Julia all too often becomes stiff as a board.

Deb Flomberg takes on Phillipa Haymes appearing to be so uncomfortable the character doesn’t have much of a chance to appear. Peggy Miller’s Mrs. Swettenham comes and goes in the blink of an eye. Brian Brooks manages to give Edmund Swettenham some breathing room, changing positions enough Edmund decides to stay close by.

Rudi Scherz is the one character that needs to remain quite still since he’s dead. Connor Williams handles this quite well. Don’t laugh. I have seen many dead bodies on stage where the actor forgot, rubbed his nose, shifted his legs, and even sneezed. It’s not as simple a task as one would think.

Jesse Pearlman’s Inspector Craddock keeps things popping, doting on an inspector’s mentality, although he also has his standing around moments.

For the most part the set projects a satisfying drawing room for the situation. However, the door supposedly boarded up, is a dead give away that it isn’t boarded up. It looks like a plywood door on hinges, and if it’s on hinges, it is simply locked. That may be in the script, requiring it to look like a plywood door, but it is just another hole in the script. The so-called innocuous door screams “look at me. I play a very significant role in this mystery.”

Reiplinger designed the costumes. Costumes are normally taken for granted without getting the necessary attention they deserve. Costumes not only have to fit the character, but need to fit the actor as well. If the actor isn’t comfortable, the character will get up and walk away. A couple of the actors look highly uncomfortable with what they wear, which definitely hinders character development. The script calls for Julia to wear a black satin dress for the 6:30 PM party, specifically since Julia says so. For an early 6:30 party, a black satin dress seems slightly outrageous. If that is what Julia wants to wear, so be it.

However, the dress she wears looks steel gray across the boards, and way too formal of a length for such an early gathering. When she first appeared, I actually thought it was a robe, a minor distraction to the conversation. Instead of party-time, it advertised sleepy-time.

We all know Miss Marple is slightly strange, but the weird blue hat when she first appears, sticks out like a sore thumb, and a jolting sore thumb at that. It doesn’t go with Rex, and doesn’t match the casual clothes Miss Marple wears.

Small theatres run on tight budgets when it comes to costuming, requiring serious scrutinizing deliberations for what hangs in the closet. When left to last minute decisions, the cast suffers.

After all is said and done, I guess it doesn’t really matter what the dramatic perspective is. To audiences who love an Agatha Christie stage adaptation, it matter little there are holes in the script, that the characters are one-dimensional paper dolls. They love the familiarity of Agatha Christie.

Payne handled the production as well as could be expected, considering what he had to work with. Spotlight is selling out, and I wouldn’t take that away from them for anything.

Payne does add a fun highlight. In the program is a ballot for the audience to fill out giving their take on who the murderer is. For those who guess correctly, their ballots get put into a hat, and a name is drawn. The winner gets a free subscription to next year’s Event Center Productions. That’s a very good thing.

If you’re an Agatha Christie fan, forget what I have just said. Go; enjoy an Agatha-Christie-mystery-time, that is, if you can get tickets. They do sell out fast.