Review: THE MOUSETRAP at Berkshire Theatre Group

Now on stage at Berkshire Theatre Group’s Colonial Theatre is Agatha Christie’s  murder mystery THE MOUSETRAP.  It is among the latest performances of this play’s continuous, record-breaking run lasting over 70 years. The legendary play’s history began when Queen Mary was approaching her 80th birthday on May 26, 1947, BBC wanted to do a special radio broadcast as a tribute to her. The broadcasting company inquired about what the Queen would like, expecting to produce an opera or Shakespeare play for her, but her reply surprised them all. She requested a brand-new Agatha Christie play. As a result, Agatha Christie wrote a thirty-minute play for Queen Mary’s birthday, which Agatha called Three Blind Mice.

Soon after the radio play’s broadcast, Agatha turned it into a short story. Three Blind Mice was published in the United States in Cosmopolitan magazine in May 1948 and as a short story collection titled Three Blind Mice and Other Stories.

A couple years later, in 1952, Agatha saw the potential for expanding Three Blind Mice into a full-length play, adding some extra characters, as well as a broader background and plot. Since Emile Littler’s production, Three Blind Mice, had just previously run on the stage, Agatha felt pressured to change her own play’s name. Her son-in-law, Anthony Hicks, suggested the name “The Mousetrap,” and so a legend was born.

The ensemble cast includes Greg Cuellar as Christopher Wren, Thursday Farrar as Mrs. Boyle, Michael Kostroff as Major Metcalf, Keshav Moodliar as Giles Ralston, Gillian Saker as Mollie Ralston, Bernadett Sefic as Miss Casewell, Matt Sullivan as Mr. Paravicini, and Allen Tedder as Sergant Trotter.  The Artistic Company includes Director Gerry McIntyre, Scenic Designer Bryce Cutler, Costume Designer Dustin Cross, Lighting Designer Sam Rushen, Sound Designer Joanna Lynne Staub, Projection Designer Bryce Cutler, Dialect Coach Jennifer Scapetis, Stage Manager Jason Hindelang, Assistant to the Director Aiden Chalfonte.  Casting by Kelly Gillespie and Caparelliotis Casting.

In the vernacular of the production, everything about it is quite satisfactory.  Solid performances, handsome and functional staging, etc.  It is all quite lovely.  This production overall, however, fails to breakthrough.  Christie’s script and characters are, as in many of her works, multifaceted and deliciously intertwined.  As we get to know more about each of them over the course of the just short of two and a half hours (with one 15-minute intermission) information that makes all potential suspects much in the way the popular 1974 film Murder On The Orient Express did.  This production is flat and rather two dimensional.  Although the audience laughed in all the right places, we were never really drawn in.  We watched the action play out before us, but the multitude of wait-what, and  a-ha moments seemed to fall short not crossing the proscenium to connect with the audience members in the way they should.  I will say that for me personally, , Matt Sullivan’s performance as Mr. Paravicini achieved the level of mystery particularly well.