The Unexpected Guest Keeps the Audience Guessing Right till the End at Theatre in the Round
The Unexpected Guest is this years annual Agatha Christie play at Theatre in the Round Players in Minneapolis. Faithful readers will know that I’m a bit of an Agatha Christie devotee and as such, I always catch these productions. Usually because I am such a fan, I know the solution to the mystery either before it begins or after a few minutes it comes back to me. What I loved about this production is that because it is a play and not an adaptation of one of her novels, and a play I haven’t seen, I didn’t have the fore knowledge that I usually do. The play starts off after the murder has occured. An unexpected stranger named Michael Starkwedder who has run his car into the ditch due to the extreme fog of the night enters a house in the country in search of a telephone and discovers the body of Richard Warwick. He also discovers the victims beautiful wife Laura standing in the dark holding a gun and ready to confess to the murder. Taken in by her beauty he decides to try and help her cover up the crime and throw suspicion on another man who has a motive. But if it were that simple it would be a episode of Columbo where we know who the killer is and the suspense will be if he gets away with it or not. To be honest that’s more or less what I thought we were getting. The first Act does feel like it’s moving a little slowly. But then, not only does the other shoe drop, a whole shoe rack falls and at least half of the cast at one point or another you’re certain is the killer. When the final curtain falls you can’t even be certain you really knew whodunnit, but in a very satisfying way.
Director Dr. Mary Cutler does a nice job of staging the show, she never allows the cast to telegraph too far in advance the next twist and turn in the plot. I especially appreciated a scene between Laura played by Corinne Nobili and family friend Julian Farrar played by Mark A. McCarthy that Cutler orchestrates so that the penny drops just a few beats for the audience before the characters catch on. It’s a moment well played by Nobili and McCarthy and it changes everything for the audience and the characters, who up until that moment, think they know what has happened. There is also a great scene between Kathleen Winters as Miss Bennett who has been with the family for years and seems to care for her scene partner Pharaoh Jones’ character, Jan the younger brother of the victim, and who is not playing with a full deck. Winters conveys Miss Bennett’s bravery and fear in equal measure as she tries to calm but also draw out the excitable Jan, it’s a very tense and effective scene with Jones playing unstable very convincingly. Sam Sweere is very charming as Michael Starkwedder, that classic Christie character type, the outsider who stumbles into something that is none of his affair but feels compelled to try and help (see Murder is Easy and Ordeal by Innocence).
The Unexpected Guest isn’t as iconic as The Mouse Trap or Murder on the Orient Express, but what it has over those is that many of us don’t know the story or the solution and that is great fun and a rare thing for an Agatha Christie fan. I had a great time with it and debating the end with my fellow theatergoers afterwards. If you like a good twisty mystery this will not disappoint. The Unexpected Guest runs through December 22nd at Theatre in the Round Players. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://www.theatreintheround.org/the-unexpected-guest/
Corinne Nobili and Sam Sweere Photo by Aaron Mark Photo Film
