A couple thousand amateur detectives gathered together at the Jubilee on Tuesday to figure out whodunnit in Broadway Across Canada’s production of Clue. A stage adaptation of the 1985 film that was an adaption of the popular board game, Clue brings a beloved murder mystery to town in a briskly-paced 85 minute production that puts a farcical spin on the old-time murder mystery. Set in a New England mansion in 1954 at the height of the Red Scare in Washington D.C., Sandy Rustin’s script brings together an unlikely group of dinner guests, who discover to their chagrin that a number of the evening’s guests are turning up dead. The police are said to be on the way, but while they are en route, the game is on to try to remain alive in order to make it through the night. That’s straight out of the Agatha Christie handbook, and for Calgary audiences, who have had decades of Vertigo Mystery Theatre productions to sharpen their Spidey senses - including a hit 2022 production of the same show - a dinner party where guests end up dead is perfectly acceptable stage storytelling. Clue is also set in the 50s, the heyday of the Red Scare, when individual Americans’ loyalty was under intense scrutiny from every one of their neighbours and so when people start to drop like flies at a dinner party in a remote mansion, no one is immune from suspicion -- particularly since each guest received a party gift that would make a nice murder weapon. It’s all pretty silly, and that’s the spirit under which director Casey Hushion presents Rustin’s playful script, adapted from Jonathan Lynn’s screenplay. There aren’t a lot of slamming doors like in British farces like The Play That Goes Wrong, but the slamming doors are replaced by rotating walls that transform into various sitting rooms quite seamlessly, thanks to a delightfully-designed set by Lee Savage. Everyone gets a moment and the cast brought plenty of energy and swerve to Tuesday’s show, while also delivering a lot of necessary exposition into their mics -- no small deal in a cavernous room the size of the Jube -- propelling Clue to a reveal no one sees coming. The best part of the show is when the script actually makes fun of the necessary exposition that every murder mystery ever written is packed with, when Wadsworth, the evening’s host played by Adam Brett, delivers a stemwinder summing it all up. Brett delivers the overwrought exposition in a way that makes use of every bone in his body, writhing and twisting, spinning and grinning as he finds a way to turn the huge Jubilee into an intimate black box. Beside Brett’s show-stopper, there are lots of moments of comedy gold from the talented cast of New York actors. Sarah McKenzie Baron has her moments as Mrs. White, a five-time widow who dresses in black. Madeline Raube is ingratiatingly funny as Mrs. Peacock, a self-important senator’s wife who keeps a flask of courage handy to deal with her anxiety. Nate Curlott is fun as wrong-way Colonel Mustard, Zoie Tannous is brassy as Yvette the French maid, and Camille Capers brings big personality to the role of Miss Scarlet. Clue is a funny whodunit where identifying the murderer is less of a big deal than the comic journey this enjoyable Broadway Across Canada production takes us on to get there. For more about Broadway Across Canada, go here.
