This reviewer will not betray the secret of “The Mousetrap” — Riverside Center’s engaging new mystery — as I have sworn to hold it in my heart and avoid any spoilers.
IF YOU GO
“The Mousetrap” at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts runs until August 23. Tickets are $67–72 (dinner is additional).
The Agatha Christie play, set in 1950s England, is a delightful trip to another time and place with drama, comedy, and, of course, murder. It is the longest-running play in London’s West End, playing continuously since 1952. Christie forbade any film or television adaptation while the play remained on stage, so there is no way to experience “The Mousetrap” other than through a live performance.
Fortunately, the Riverside production delivers with superb acting, sets, lighting, and costumes. The sets, designed by Frank Foster, recreate an English country home of the era, including a large tube radio that plays period music and BBC broadcasts.
“I’ve got a couple of things that I’ve done directorially to kind of get the audience into the world of 1950s England and transport them there because that was when they opened the show in England for the British audience,” director Andrew Foote said. “And now we have 70 years plus a whole ocean between us.
“It’s kind of genre-defining. Things like ‘Clue’ or ‘Knives Out’ are all a bit of a nod to this show.”
Kevin Cleary (left), Sara Dabney Tisdale (right) and Jacob Cole (front) in ‘The Mousetrap’.
The play takes place in a guesthouse run by a recently married couple, Mollie and Giles Ralston, played by Mia Gomez Montero and Kevin Cleary, respectively. This is Montero’s debut on the Riverside stage, and she comes well prepared for the role, having recently completed her graduate studies at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama at the University of London.
“Mollie is this doe-eyed, seemingly naive young woman who is entering this business venture with her husband, Giles, as they are opening Monkswell Manor Guesthouse,” Montero said. “This show takes place on the very first day that they are opening the guesthouse. You can guess how things go for Mollie and Giles when it turns out to be the scene of a crime or two.”
The guests are a quirky collection of personalities that make the first act more of a comedy than a murder mystery.
Jacob Cole plays Christopher Wren, a bit of a dandy young Englishman and kind of a precursor to the sharp wit of Mick Jagger or John Lennon. Kathy Halenda plays Mrs. Boyle, an insufferable lady who is never satisfied with her accommodations. John Hollinger plays the elderly Major Metcalf, who reminded me of Major Gowen on the ’70s British sitcom “Fawlty Towers.” Sara Dabney Tisdale plays the carefree Miss Casewell, a progressive woman for her time. Brent Deekens plays the secretive, unexpected guest Paravicini with an intentionally unidentifiable European accent. Ben Ribler is introduced later in act one as Sergeant Trotter, sent to investigate the murder.
John Hollinger and Kathy Halenda in ‘Mousetrap’.
“The first act really does move like a comedy a little bit,” Montero said. “We’ve put in a lot of jokes or we’ve made certain things funny and emphasize the dry British humor that is embedded in the text. So that helps move things along. So then when the switch happens for act two, we’re really in the throes of this true whodunit where everyone is a suspect.”
“I always find no matter what, especially with live theater, no matter how dramatic the subject matter, you always need to have a little bit of levity in it,” Foote said. “When an audience member laughs, laughter is a reflex, and in order to get an audience member to laugh, they have to let their guard down.
“Once they let their guard down their heart opens, and it relaxes them, and you’re able to then take them anywhere with the story. So I always like to start a little bit with some comedy, and then we can get to the heaviness of act two.”
Tensions indeed rise in act two when the snowed-in guests and proprietors of Monkswell Manor turn on each other in pursuit of a murderer (again, no spoilers). The set, which remains constant during the entire play, has a role in heightening the mystery, with characters entering and exiting through different doors in the room.
“The audience, acting as a detective about three-quarters of the way through act two, realizes, ‘Wait a second, anyone could have committed this murder, not just somebody who was closest,'” Foote said. “The locations of everybody are such that anybody could have walked into this room and managed to commit this murder and exit without anyone else knowing, or passing anybody. So there’s secrets within the house.”
A fun game is played with the audience at intermission, in which they get to vote on who they suspect of committing the murder. The poll results are read at the end of the play, along with a special message from one of the characters swearing the audience to secrecy and to honor the mystery for future audiences.
If you’re game for a good mystery, “The Mousetrap” may be just your cup of tea.
Jacob Cole and Sara Dabney Tisdale.
