Review: A Sinister POSTMORTEM at The Belmont

Ken Ludwig is known primarily as a crafter of farces; LEND ME A TENOR, among others, is performed endlessly around the country. So when a theatre decides to put on something he's done that isn't a farce, and, for that matter, barely cracks a joke in it, it's a bit of an event. The Belmont, the theatre located in Ludwig's home area of York, is doing POSTMORTEM, Ludwig's murder mystery, and making a show of it in the best way.

POSTMORTEM isn't a perfect murder mystery, though it is indeed fair to the audience - no surprise villains lurking under trap doors, no sudden miraculous endings, and it's based on what's really a charming conceit. The only real historical figure in the play is actor William Gillette, the English actor who made a fortune in the Victorian and Edwardian period playing Sherlock Holmes on stage in America. One thing he did befitting his wealth and his Englishness was to build a castle in Connecticut, which is the setting of the show. All of the action takes place in a fairly lavish drawing room and a staircase leading upstairs from it, and that action is plentiful. So is the drinking and the hysteria, once Gillette's weekend party proceeds to spiral downhill. The story has its comic moments, but not so many as Ludwig's better-known farces, or BASKERVILLE, his Sherlock Holmes and "The Hound of the Baskervilles" meet THE 39 STEPS comic mystery.

It takes a little chutzpah to play one of the most famous actors in American history on stage, but Jack Hartman has both that chutzpah and some serious chops. His William Gillette doesn't quite think he's Sherlock Holmes, but he thinks he can flush out his fiancee's murderer, someone who must have been at a weekend party a year ago at that time. The suspects are all either castmates from Gillette's current Holmes production or his own family members - his sister Marion (Becky Wilcox, who is great fun to watch in her part) and her husband Leo (Paul Lajkowicz); his aunt, who raised him, Lily (Claudia Shanaman); hard-drinking, badly-behaved actor Bobby (Charlie Heller); ingénue actress May (Ahmae Messersmith); or his fiancee's friend, actress-turned-professional-psychic Louise (Christy Brooks). There's even a suggestion of suspicious butler.

Although Gillette is the center of attention, this is a true ensemble show, and many scenes omit Gillette's presence. While the characters are two-dimensional compared to an Agatha Christie play, their scenes in Gillette's absence do help establish facts, uncover motives and each other's suspicions, and give the audience a chance to work out individual conclusions about whodunit and why. Although the conclusion and ultimate killer may not be the person you suspected, the clues are fairly and liberally sprinkled through the show... as you realize when you finally see the murderer. This reviewer, who's lived through a lot of stage mysteries and loves them, was right, but purely because her nasty, suspicious mind went to the right conjecture. The actual clues were there, when she looks back on the show.

There are some great moments in this production, including Bobby's and May's entrance, waiting for the others to arrive; the argument between Leo and Marion; and, as you might guess from the presence of the psychic, the séance. The familial interactions between Gillette and his aunt feel very real. But of the ensemble outside Gillette, it may be Marion and Leo who own this. Wilcox and Lajkowicz are the perfect embodiment of the long-married couple that's begun to take each other for granted except when they find obscure motives to be jealous. They're very real, and (depending on your circle of friends) may be very familiar to you.

It's a diverting period mystery of the one-set drawing room variety that's so commonly a British staple, and it does feel more on the Brit-mystery side of the suspense play world, rather than clearly American as with WAIT UNTIL DARK, despite its American authorship. No wonder Ludwig is popular in England. The smaller Studio Theatre in the Belmont is a perfect stage for this sort of show, as audiences can feel quite easily that they're in a corner of the room, and if only they could see around it to know who's holding the weapon, life would be so much easier for them.

At the Belmont, formerly York Little Theatre, through the 30th. Visit thebelmont.org for tickets and information.

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