Clue

Postcard Review by Caroline Russell-King

Show – Clue

Playwright/s/Composer/s – Written by Sandy Rustin, additional material by Hunter Foster and Eric Price based on the screenplay by Jonathan Lynn (based on the Hasbro board game).

Production Company/Theatre space – (professional) Work Light Productions and LME Productions, in association with Broadway Across Canada, The John Ware Organization at the Jubilee Auditorium.

Length – 1 Act (90 minutes, no intermission.)

Genre– Comedy/Mystery

Premise – Founded on the boardgame, six iconic characters are invited to a mansion on a dark and stormy night, secrets are revealed, mayhem ensues, and people start dying – who did what to whom and with which implement?

Why this play? Why now? –  A name recognition show with popular appeal.

Curiosities – I wondered how a show that is NOT a musical would go over with an audience that associates Broadway Across Canada with dance, song and spectacle.

Notable Moment – The singing telegram.

Notable writing – Setting the play in 1954 against a backdrop of McCarthyism and the House Un-American Activities Committee really weighs down the opening. It’s a silly caper not a political satire. Once we get past all that and the bodies start dropping, things go from black and white to colour.

Notable performances – The Butler (Adam Brett) steals the show with his seriously funny madcap summing up of events, that sends up the other characters, reminiscent of John Clease as Basil Fawlty.

Mrs. White (all in black) played by Sarah MacKenzie is wonderfully droll. Mrs. Peacock (Madeline Raube) twitters comically about while Miss Scarlet (Camille Capers) sashays around in her Jessica Rabbit red dress, but it is Mr. Green (TJ Lamando) who has the best twist. French maid (Zoie Tannous) is a little hard to hear but in contrast the cook (AT Sanders) has the best deadpan delivery.

Notable design/Production – Scenic Designer Lee Savage gives Calgary the second best set we’ve seen in Calgary, rife with the prerequisite doors that farce demands. Composer Michael Holland introduced enough music that made us want to tip over into song and dance.

Notable direction – Director Casey Hushion, who also directed the premiere at the Clevland Playhouse, understands that broad and fast are the name of the game.

One reason to see this show – This is not a bored game; it’s a lot of fun.