Review: CLUE at Gaslight-Baker Theatre

There are productions where the set provides the background, and then there are productions where you walk into the theatre and immediately think, “Well, somebody had fun building this!” Gaslight-Baker Theatre’s production of CLUE, sponsored by Donna Blair and Tamara Carlisle, falls enthusiastically into the second category.

Before anyone has been murdered, accused, blackmailed, or chased through a doorway - and there are certainly enough doorways to choose from! - Van Calvert’s spectacular Boddy Manor announces that this production intends to play big. The gorgeous set stretches across the stage in rich blues and reds, transformed throughout the evening by Beth James’s lighting into splashes of chartreuse, hot pink, orange, turquoise, and more. Two staircases rise toward an upper platform. Rotating sections reveal rooms within the mansion. Doors hide within the architecture, at least thirteen by my count, including eight cleverly disguised within the walls, and every one seems to be waiting for someone to burst through it, slam it, hide behind it, or discover something unfortunate on the other side.

And perched above it all, beneath a faux pipe organ, sits pianist Derek Smootz, one of the great delights of this production!

He enters before the action begins, dressed in a tuxedo, gives the audience a deep bow, climbs to his perch, and launches into Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. From there, he becomes far more than an accompanist. Piano, organ, bells, chimes, glissandos, musical stingers, raised eyebrows, reactions to the actors, and perfectly timed musical commentary make him something of an additional character in Boddy Manor. When the characters yell at him, he is ready. When Colonel Mustard mentions his expertise in interrogation, Smootz’s expression supplies its own punchline. He even joins the cast’s slow-motion shenanigans. His underscoring of the climactic reenactment is especially effective, adding another layer of absurdity as the evening barrels toward its multiple explanations.

Director Beth James has wisely embraced that sense of play throughout the production. CLUE works best when its murder mystery is treated with enough seriousness to give the characters something to push against, while the performers are given room to surrender completely to the ridiculousness. James keeps the stage moving constantly. Characters prance, dance, tiptoe, and race across the front while scenery changes behind them; spotlights wander through the mansion during the search; doors reveal unexpected spaces; evidence appears through a cleverly designed shade; and a gunshot aimed at Mr. Green becomes a wonderfully silly Matrix-like moment.

Managing all those moving parts is no small accomplishment. Assistant Director Marlowe Hughes and Stage Manager Josh West deserve particular recognition for helping keep an evening filled with doors, rotating scenery, props, bodies, entrances, exits, lighting cues, sound cues, and assorted murder weapons moving at such a lively pace. The stage hands - Yahva Westbrook, Gretchen Westbrook, Malcolm Smootz, Katie King, Stephanie Johnson, and Emma Johnson - are part of the machinery that allows the comedy to keep rolling.

Casey Wiggins anchors the evening beautifully as Wadsworth. He has the difficult task of being host, guide, investigator, storyteller, traffic controller, and eventually a one-man reenactment company. Wiggins grows increasingly funny as the complications pile up, and the famous breathless reconstruction of the evening’s events gives him ample opportunity to demonstrate both comic timing and physical stamina. His eventual demise is so magnificently ridiculous that it becomes almost agonizingly funny.

Doug DeGirolamo is another standout as Colonel Mustard. His Mustard is wonderfully physical, from an absent-minded scratch at precisely the wrong moment to leaning the wrong direction while everyone attempts to listen through drinking glasses. When it is time to divide everyone into pairs, his use of “one potato, two potato” feels exactly like the kind of “strategic” brilliance one wants from Colonel Mustard. DeGirolamo commits completely to the slapstick without forcing it.

Ben Kercheval makes Mr. Green an equally strong comic presence, handling the increasingly frantic physical demands of the role with gusto. Steven Cruser gives Professor Plum an effective comic presence, while Terri Bennet makes Mrs. Peacock’s entrance an event in itself. Bennet continues to find laughs in Peacock’s fluttery panic, particularly when she begins waving a knife around with considerably less concern than one might hope.

Robyn Gammill takes Mrs. White in a somewhat different direction than the character is sometimes played. This White is less rigid and more openly expressive, which gives Gammill room for wonderfully dry sarcasm. Her entrance costume, complete with an outstanding face veil, immediately establishes the character before she has much chance to explain herself. And her infamous “snake” that is decidedly not a snake lands perfectly. 

Cynthia Cruser brings plenty of attitude to Miss Scarlett, while Hallie Strange leans gleefully into Yvette’s broad comic possibilities. The maid slamming doors after depositing guests in their rooms becomes an early running joke, and a flashlight incorporated into a feather duster is exactly the sort of absurd little prop CLUE deserves.

A. Jason Jones handles the dual duties of Mr. Boddy and the Chief of Police. Some of his vocal choices, particularly an accent that seems to wander toward New York, feel somewhat disconnected from the otherwise carefully established world of the production, and some of Boddy’s styling and jewelry read more contemporary than the period suggested elsewhere onstage. Still, Jones contributes effectively to the ensemble’s escalating chaos.

Rebecca Smootz, Becket Jones, and Alfredo Lozano round out the company in multiple smaller roles, helping populate a mansion that becomes increasingly crowded with unexpected visitors, law enforcement, singing telegrams, motorists, and bodies. By the time the police strike a “Charlie’s Angels” pose, realism has wisely packed its suitcase and gone home.

The design work deserves particular praise. Jill Kammerdiener’s costumes are fabulous: beautifully fitted, boldly colored, and individualized for each character. The rainbow of costumes also complements the colored architectural details surrounding the mansion’s entrance, creating a visual unity that is playful without becoming cartoonish. Maria Anderson assists Kammerdiener with the costume work.

Calvert’s set may be the production’s visual crown jewel. The rotating rooms work exceptionally well, and spaces including the kitchen and safe emerge from places that have been hiding in plain sight. Sara Lee Hughes serves as Scenic Change Artist, while an impressively large team contributed to set construction, scenic painting, and property design: Calvert, Steven Cruser, Cynthia Cruser, Will Dotter, Robyn Gammill, Betsy Hambien, Marlowe Hughes, John Hoest, Beth James, Ben Kercheval, Liza McCarthy, Michael McCauley, Cheryl Mendoza, Myer Metz, Ron Revell, Stephanie Sanders, Larry Sloan, and Josh West.

The technical details continually reward attention. The visible bullet mark is a nifty touch. The wandering lights and flashes during the search sequence create controlled confusion, and the sound design supports the physical action particularly well. Even the absurdly loud dinner gong gets its laugh.

All of this gives the actors an elaborate playground for physical comedy, and they use it. There is plenty of running, falling, posing, listening, hiding, creeping, slamming, and occasional mildly lewd foolishness. The ensemble’s exaggerated procession to the dining room is funny precisely because everyone agrees to commit to the same ridiculous world.

That commitment extends beyond the stage. Just before the performance I attended, an audience member accidentally broke a beer bottle in the house. The front-of-house crew responded with humor, lightheartedness, and genuine kindness, quickly handling the mishap without making anyone uncomfortable. It was a small moment, but one that said something lovely about the hospitality surrounding the production.

The nearly full house seemed ready for exactly that kind of evening. Even the preshow music (Benny Goodman, Louis Jordan, Count Basie, Bill Haley and other upbeat selections) creates the feeling that everyone has been invited to a party. Granted, it is a party where six strangers arrive at a mysterious mansion, receive aliases, discover an assortment of murder weapons, and spend the rest of the evening trying to determine why people keep dying.

But nobody said community theatre parties had to be sensible!

Gaslight-Baker Theatre’s CLUE succeeds because it understands that the fun is not simply in discovering who did it. The fun is in watching an entire theatre work together to make the mystery increasingly, joyfully absurd. James and her company have built a production full of color, movement, music, terrific physical comedy, and some very funny surprises. And somewhere above all those doors, Derek Smootz is waiting with exactly the right chord or musical motif!

CLUE at Gaslight-Baker Theatre is less a quiet murder mystery than a brightly colored comic machine: one with revolving rooms, flashing lights, fabulous costumes, thirteen-ish doors, a butler running for his life, and a pianist who may know more than he is letting on.

CLUE

Written by Sandy Rustin, Hunter Foster, Eric Price, Michael Holland

Theater Company: Gaslight-Baker Theatre

Venue: 216 S Main St, Lockhart, TX 78644

September 25-October 11, Fridays-Saturdays, 7:30 pm, Sundays at 2:00 pm 

Running Time: 90 minutes, no intermission

Tickets: $0-20

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