Do you love a mystery? Especially a locked room mystery with a world-famous sleuth solving the crime among a group of flamboyant upper-crust suspects? The Little Theatre of Alexandria’s production of “Murder on the Orient Express” has all of these exciting elements, inviting the audience to “match wits” with a great detective (as they used to say on a vintage television mystery series), Even better, this current production of the Agatha Christie “whodunnit,” adapted for the stage by Ken Ludwig and produced by Luana Bossolo and Kadira Coley, asks the audience to contemplate different approaches to ethics.
The show centers on Belgian master detective Hercule Poirot. Poirot boards the famous Orient Express train in Istanbul and meets a curious cast of characters, including a Russian noblewoman who has fled the October Revolution, an outspoken American Midwesterner, and a prim and proper Englishwoman. Soon a murder occurs on the train while it is stopped in a snowdrift, meaning that the murderer must be someone still on the train. Adding to the mystery, the train compartment where the event has occurred is locked from the inside, and, according to Poirot, “there are too many clues.”
When Poirot finds his solution, he and the audience are faced with a dilemma which, in his own words, forces him to question his own values. Poirot is an advocate of duty ethics, especially the variety proposed by Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative, whereby there must be no deviation from law and justice, which are universal and allow for no exceptions. In this case, however, the murder may actually be in the cause of a greater justice, in which the dead person has been immune from justice through the courts and might have been prevented from committing horrendous future murders. Thus, the murder on the Orient Express may possibly be justified on grounds of either the utilitarian “greatest good for the greatest number” ethical view or, indeed, divine judgement reasoning. Audience members will have to decide for themselves which of these views is most valid. While the show is not directly interactive, ethical questions are asked of the audience in a meaningful way.
A strong asset of the show is its wonderful cast. Poirot is portrayed to perfection by Michael Kharfen, who conveys a Poirot with a powerful desire for justice, speaking with a French as well as a slightly Germanic accent. Colonel Arbuthnot is played with conviction (and convincing Scottish accent!) by John Paul Odle. Eleanore Tapscott is a special delight as midwestern train passenger Helen Hubbard, singing a showtune from Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes” (to the annoyance of other passengers) and injecting welcome humor into the proceedings. Danielle Comer excels as the Englishwoman Mary Debenham, Brian Lyons-Burke has wonderful chemistry with Poirot as his friend and compatriot Monsieur Bouc, and Brianna Goode makes for an excellent Countess Andrenyi.
Set designer Matt Liptak’s staging is exquisite, with an outstanding employment of props. Particularly noteworthy is the use of the headlights of the locomotive, executed effectively by lighting designers Ken and Patti Crowley. Detailed recreations of train cabins and a dining car recall a past age of luxury for train travel. The wonderful period costumes likewise succeed in evoking the elegance of the elite of the 1930s. Flashback sequences, not easy to achieve in the theatre, are also done very effectively as cast members late in the play stand up and recite key lines which helped Poirot piece together his solution to the mystery.
The show, with all parts skillfully woven together by director Stefan Sittig, runs through April 13 at the Little Theatre of Alexandria (600 Wolfe St., Alexandria, VA). For more information, visit thelittletheatre.com.
