‘The Mousetrap’ Is Polished and Professional

Doug Jarecki, Libby Amato, Rudy Galvan, Jonathan Gillard Daly, Casey Hoekstra, Margaret Casey, Lillian Brown and Josh Krause. Photo by Michael Brosilow.

Identifying the villain at the end of an Agatha Christie mystery occurs in every production (just don’t tell!), but the real test that Next Act Theatre’s version of The Mousetrap survives is not the whodunit but the howdunit.

Next Act through December 17 is using the metronomic timing of props, entrances, blackouts, disturbing radio voice, lights out, the well-placed scream and the surging of ominous music to create a satisfying orchestration of all the knowing (and known) mischief of the formula.

You know you’re entering Dame Agatha land with one look at Lisa Schlenker’s set and the way director Mary MacDonald Kerr uses it for constant motion. Here is the British guest mansion, remote during a snowstorm, the regular wintry entrance of each guest in designer Jason Orlenko’s period outfits, the swinging door left, the upper stage door (actually a closet that leads to the mansion’s underworld), the staircase to unseen bedrooms, the aisleway to a hidden piano, the central window where outside visitors lurk in the snow, the old-fashioned radio voice detailing a shocking nearby murder, the “Three Blind Mice” theme from that distant piano or maybe from a mysterious whistler.

The 150-seat, three-sided theater becomes Agatha comfort food, with all the historic trappings of amateur community theater risen to the pro ranks.

The technical details and maneuvers are often more important than the plot intricacies. Agatha aficionados know she has no hesitation to joke around with all her stock characters and staging devices, such as gathering suspects together for an explanation and then separating them for revealing conversations.

It is a pleasure to watch how director Kerr keeps forming tableaus and justifying the character’s movements from couch to plush chair to fireplace – one character going to comfort another, one beckoning another to sit nearer. Subtly the tableaus are changing to keep the cast moving about, to make the familiar expository elements more engaging. It is not so much that we keep guessing who is hiding their past, but to enjoy even as we anticipate the repartee and the revelations.

Some in the audience, I suspect, will guess the conclusion early and still stay interested.  They may even invent their own backgrounds for the various characters.

The actors have to do their behavioral best to keep us interested in what have become stock types all too familiar in British mysteries – the annoying biddy, the retired military man, the mysterious foreign woman, the late-arriving stranger.

Each actor in his or her own way is a red herring to keep the patrons wondering who the murderer is. But some have found better ways to make their stock characters come alive.

As the antic young man who enjoys everything and seems constantly mysterious, Rudy Galvan capers about like the comic book Joker come to suspicious life. As the dutiful husband who comes to dislike him, Josh Krause goes from complacent domestic to fuming exasperated fellow capable of – who knows what? And why early on does he fumble with his wife’s bus ticket? And why did he sneak off to London?

The trick is to give each actor time to establish character – finding delivery modes that feel fresh. Sometimes they look a bit phony, as when they try to simulate shivering in the cold. But mostly they keep the exchanges lively and crisp.

The problem for a few is how they hold onto the center they establish. Even while we never quite believe Lillian Brown as the central domestic, her basic charm and expository ability are quite pleasant. Always an expert laugh-getter, and here with a crazy accent, Jonathan Gillard Daly lives up to that take-the-stage ability, though the part is one-dimensional. We suspect Margaret Casey also has more than one dimension, but the one she gets to show is deliciously hateful.

Casey Hoekstra alternates inquisitiveness with near hysteria. Doug Jarecki not only provides the program with its funniest bio, but he is bluffly endearing as the retired military man – or is that what he is? And why does Libby Amato as the sometimes foreign, sometimes familiar guest seem so in control one minute and so emotional the next?

There are legends associated with The Mousetrap. Agatha Christie clearly tossed this one off in elderly years, never expecting such success. She even gave the royalties away to a grandson. Yet, except for a break caused by the recent pandemic, the play has been running in London since 1952 and I am not about to be the first reviewer in 71 years to give away the ending.

I will tell you that this is not her best fashioned mystery and that the “don’t reveal the ending” warning is also a nice gimmick that has lasted for decades. (Next Act is even giving out buttons to the audience members to remind them to stay silent.)

Yet it’s not the plot twist that makes the Next Act production work. It’s the reminder that not all well-done theater has to be new and cutting edge. When done this capably, The Mousetrap is more like a comfortable old shoe — this time with professionals doing the fitting.

The Mousetrap Gallery

Dominique Paul Noth served for decades as film and drama critic, later senior editor for features at the Milwaukee Journal. You’ll find his blogs here and here.