Review: CLUE at New Theatre Restaurant

Madcap! Frenetic! Hilarious! It is the New Theatre Restaurant production of CLUE. CLUE is a comic murder-mystery tale based on the 1985 film of the same name which was based on the 1949 Parker Brothers board game that just about anyone who grew up in that period will surely have played at some point.

Like any great comic murder-mystery, this one happens on a dark and stormy night during the early 1950s in the spooky Boddy Mansion outside Washington D.C.  The Mansion is attended by a central-casting-hired butler named Wadsworth (James Taylor Odom), a French maid named Yvettte (Kimberly Horner) complete with the sexy French Maid costume, and a predictably crusty cook named Cook (Mandy Morris).  

The setup is a dinner party for six guests given by a certain Mr. Boddy (Greg Butell).  All the guests are unknown to each other (and attending under a pseudonym) and to Mr. Boddy, but each is being blackmailed for various and sundry reasons that soon become clear.

Arriving in no important order are the six blackmailed guests. Miss Scarlet (Cathy Burnett), dressed appropriately in red, is the proprietor of a Washington escort service.  Mr. Green (Zachary Ford) is a flamboyantly gay government contractor. Mrs. White (Kelly Felthous) dressed in black with a floor length gown slit to the waist is a sexy merry widow type with the unfortunate habit of poisoning rich husbands. Professor Plum (Ross Helwig) dressed in (you guessed it) is a defrocked psychiatrist whose bad habit is taking advantage of female patients. Mrs. Peacock (Cathy Newman), dressed in turquoise with a feather plume, is the wife of an important U.S. Senator. Rounding out the list of blackmailees is Col. Mustard (John Rensenhouse), the uniformed and mustachioed somewhat dense military man who may or may not have sticky fingers.

The guests sit down for dinner and are threatened by the gangsterish Mr. Boddy before he becomes the first character to get knocked off.   It’s OK because the man represented by Mr. Boddy is actually the butler and the butler is Mr. Boddy.  Got all that?

Our guests are distributed sealed envelopes inside which are potential murder weapons.  They are a lead pipe, a candlestick, a gun, a rope, a dagger, and a wrench.  Their project for the evening is to discover Mr. Boddy’s killer and in which room of the mansion the dastardly deed has taken place.

The guests decide to pair off and search the mansion's rooms. During the subsequent search, additional murder victims are discovered including Cook, Yvette *the French maid,” a stranded motorist, a policeman, and a tap dancing singing telegram girl.  Don’t fall into the trap of deciding the butler did it.

CLUE is written by Sandy Ruskin from the 1985 Screenplay by Jonathon Lynn with original music by Michael Holland and deliberately chocked full of bad jokes piled upon Easter Eggs. Surprisingly, all this works.  Imagine the Keystone Cops if written by Mel Brooks and performed on a vaudeville stage with a modern transforming set.  This production is helmed by Jerry Jay Cranford.

What makes CLUE even more fun is the Easter Eggs.  You’d have to see the show multiple times to catch all the fast-moving jokes and allusions.  CLUE is funny enough you might actually want to attend multiple performances.

These actors are all excellent and quick on the uptake. Leading the parade is James Taylor Odom as Wadsworth who was part of last year’s touring production of CLUE.

The 1985 filmed version attempted an innovative marketing model to foster multiple attendance.  The final few minutes of the film featured multiple endings.  The idea was that each time you saw the film you would discover a new culprit.  I won’t spoil how this production handles the multiple endings.

CLUE continues at New Theatre Restaurant through September 7, 2025. Tickets are available online or by telephone at 913.649.7469.    

Photos by Vincent Savage