By Kelly Oristano
Newly renovated (and very comfortable), The Very Little Theatre is presenting a newly renovated (and very comfortable) Murder on the Orient Express for the second offering of its 94th season. The production offers community theater at its finest, and, as adapted by Broadway’s leading adapter Ken Ludwig, also at its funniest.
There’s not much humor in Agatha Christie’s original tale. Poirot’s little asides and his whole character amused their contemporary audiences, but the book doesn’t ask for laughs. Ludwig, and here director Maggie Hadley, have asked, and on opening night they were answered. Hadley and her team have crafted a very funny, character-led and visually luxurious murder mystery.
It’s a bold choice to lean into comedy while faithfully adapting a murder mystery with some prurient and unpleasant underpinnings. There’s a definite danger of a tonal mismatch, but Hadley and Ludwig have made it work here, leaning into character all over. Character, mood, and comedy take precedence over the whodunit in both the text and the presentation.
Let’s not waste 100 words on the plot when the title gets you there in five: There’s been a murder. On the Orient Express. Onward.
Agatha Christie was a victim of Poirot’s success. She grew to hate him as audiences grew to love him, but she might have fallen in love with him again seeing him portrayed by Achilles Massahos. Fastidious, questioning, brilliant, mercurial Poirot fits Massahos like the most comfortable suit of clothes one owns. A more comic Poirot suits him even better. The pathos of Poirot’s famous complexes comes out of every gesture and expression, and he carries the evening with grace, as any Poirot must.
But a Poirot alone, (no matter how much he might enjoy it), is as nothing. His genius must bounce off of the characters who come into his orbit and activate his grey matter. Hadley has seen to Ludwig’s vision and surrounded Massahos with a top notch ensemble of character actors.
One of the most satisfying things about Ludwig’s adaptation is that it makes the roles for women more vivid and more varied than either the novel or the feature films. No one is a mere nurse or travel companion or other variant of wallflower here — all these women are vibrant and alive, funny and fully present.
Sarah Glidden is charming and troubled as the ingenue with a secret. Denise LaCroix is the withering, haughty Princess Dragomiroff, able to shrivel her nemeses with a glance and destroy them with a word. Rachelle George and Zepha Wright rise to meet the challenge of complicated characters with complicated histories and motivations. Vanessa Norman is outstanding as the Swedish puritan prude Greta Ohlsson; a part that has almost no substance to it in previous iterations becomes a broad comic gem through Norman’s riotous realization of Greta.
And the fellows more than hold their own as well. Dave Smith shines as Constantine Bouc, business operator of the Orient Express who, having history with Hercule, is a bit of a Poirot whisperer. Paul Dunckel is captivating as both Samuel Ratchett and Colonel Arbuthnot, nailing the look and sound of these demanding characters with panache and charisma. Scott Machado also pulls double duty as the hilarious snooty waiter in the train station cafe and then as Michel, the conductor of the Express, a simple, dedicated functionary of the railroad. (Or is he?) Matthew Arscott provides the perfect nervous energy to Hector MacQueen, Ratchett’s travel secretary. Arscott brings a Peter Lorre level of squirmy discomfort to his interrogations. The entire ensemble show a keen ability to recapture the energy of Old Hollywood in their characterizations and the ensemble character work across the board is the chief draw of the evening.
The production crew under Hadley’s conducting have also recaptured a bit of Old Hollywood magic. Sarah Etherton and Ali McQueen’s train set is gorgeous and nicely functional under Mollie Clevidence’s rich lush lighting design. Maddeningly, however, you’ll be waiting a solid 20 t0 25 minutes into the show to see it — the first scenes at a Station Cafe and on the platform are all done in front of the closed curtain, saving the reveal of the prestige set until the middle of Act One. Gail Rapp and Paula Tendick’s costuming and Sarah Nesslin’s hair and makeup and wig design further enhance Hadley’s escapist world building. Dialect Coach Ellen Kress must have done excellent work as well, the vocal presentation is as convincing as it is varied.
Your reviewer attended opening night with his family of four and can report that there was something for everyone. The 10-year-old loved the broad jokes and surprising stagecraft (at one point the train comes right out at the audience, perhaps an allusion to L’Arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat, the early silent film that scared audiences as a train approached the camera.) The 15-year-old spent intermission sorting suspects into ‘likely’ and ‘unlikely’ piles, and the co-parent loved the collaborative magic that comes of a production succeeding in all departments.
The Orient Express is only stopping in Eugene for another two weekends. Catch it before it departs.
Murder on the Orient Express at the VLT
When: 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 21-22, 27-29 and 2 p.m. on Oct. 23, and 30
Where: 2350 Hilyard St., Eugene
Tickets: $24, except $20 for the single Thursday performance on Oct. 27, available online at thevlt.comm/tickets
Information: 541-344-7751 or TheVLT.com
The cast of Murder on the Orient Express at the Very LIttle Theatre
