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Regional Reviews: St. Louis The Unexpected Guest
The open-and-shut nature may remind you more of Erle Stanley Gardner than of the actual culprit in this case: the queen of mystery, Agatha Christie. But two hours later, the trippy ending (with its overlapping, possible solutions) goes by with the rhythm of some riffling card trick, before your very eyes. It's almost like "Death on the Nile" or the legendary "Murder on the Orient Express," with all the variations presented in the wrap-up. And yet, this one doesn't require a Hercule Poirot to keep things straight—or even any great confessional moments, where possible suspects are ground down to ruins by the tragedies in their own lives. Instead, we follow Kelli Rao, who is excellent as the British femme fatale, and Robert Stevenson, equally great as a passing stranger who comes to her aid. There is a police inspector (Joe O'Connor, underplaying magnificently), and Mr. Stevenson (as Michael Starkwedder) does his own share of probing too, in a household where a former big-game hunter has declined into what Coleridge once called "motiveless malignancy" before he's finally put out of everyone else's misery. Other standouts in the cast, under the direction of Nada Vaughn, include the terrifically mysterious David Hawley as a male nurse with an eye toward blackmail; handsome Joshua Rodewald as an ambitious British politician with a scandal to sweep under the rug; and Marilyn Bass-Hayes as the victim's mother—who has her own plans to sew everything up near the end. There are, admittedly, a few weak moments in this otherwise fine production. And yet it's the strangest thing—now and then you sit there thinking, "well, that's just not very convincing at all" (for a total of maybe eight or nine minutes combined, in the entire two-hour-plus experience). But, because it's an Agatha Christie murder mystery, another explanation soon begins to dawn on you: "Maybe those few, odd, tinny moments are supposed to look fake!" In the end, it's the strangest thing, the way suspicion creates hall of mirrors in our minds, as the audience. Christie supplies plenty of simmering and stilted interludes of suspicion and frustrated desire. And, overall, it's a very pleasantly baffling evening. Time and reality, and even the parallel universes of our own perspectives, get all wrapped around each other in the final moments, as the details we'd utterly forgotten about come roaring back all at once. The sensation is not unlike that nightmare where it's the final exam in high school, and you don't even remember ever going to that particular class in the first place. Through May 4, 2014, at the old CBC prep school, across from the Esquire and Schnucks, at 6501 Clayton Rd. For more information visit www.placeseveryone.org. On an unrelated note, a terrific little musical from last summer is being revived at Westport Playhouse, after it's initial run at Stages St. Louis. Always... Patsy Cline features the original, outstanding two-women cast. For more information, visit www.stagesstlouis.org or go to our 2013 theater review. Cast of The Unexpected Guest Crew
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