Theatre Aquarius’ season opener, “Spider’s Web,” offers chills and chuckles. Review
Who would have thought the old lady had so much fun in her? Those of us familiar with Dame Agatha expect to be lectured a little about class, force-fed false clues and kept guessing until the curtain falls and the killer is carted away in handcuffs.
That’s the usual Agatha Christie routine. In the best of her plays, from the snowbound terror of “The Mousetrap,” to the courtroom shocks of “Witness for the Prosecution” Christie delivered her familiar red herrings with only an obligatory snicker or two to relieve tension.
Well, in “Spider’s Web” there’s still a body to be hidden somewhere in a handsome manor house. And as usual there are suspects galore. But this time the chills come with chuckles as the wily old writer walks us down the garden path.
Get ready for Christie unchained as this 1954 comedy/ mystery leads you deeper and deeper into the binding threads of a disturbing web.
“Spider’s Web,” Theatre Aquarius’ season opener, first appeared on London’s West End in 1954, where Christie already had two major hits packing in the punters. It joined “The Mousetrap” and “Witness for the Prosecution” as a must-see diversion.
Written especially for the glamorous British screen star Margaret Lockwood, “Spider’s Web” surprised audiences with its buoyant sense of fun.
Lockwood, of course, was its major shot of star power and source of audience pleasure. Well, don’t despair, the Aquarius production, currently holding
audiences in thrall, has its own jolt of star personality in Mairi Babb, who gives this Christie mystery a sense of occasion.
Babb has the looks of a young Vivien Leigh, the perfect diction of a youthful Elizabeth Taylor and a warm and charming personality that is completely her own. You’re going to absolutely love her.
Babb’s Clarissa Hailsham-Brown is at the very centre of this admittedly old-fashioned, sometimes cornball mystery. She perambulates the stage, holding sway in the elegant drawing room of Patrick Clark’s beautifully dressed Cobblestone Common set, suggesting the kind of stage charisma more common in the 1950s than it is today.
But Babb is not alone in conjuring delicious portraits of latter day stylish acting. Mike Shara is an always adroit Jeremy Warrender sparring with Peter Millgard’s canny Inspector Lord. And Valerie Boyle as Coppletone’s eccentric gardener, Miss Peake, is her usual and artful self, stealing every scene she can with her pixilated presence. Caroline Toal has a teenage bounce about her as wide-eyed Pippa, around whom much of the play’s mystery revolves.
About the periphery for further support are Anthony Bekenn, Guy Bannerman, Douglas E. Hughes, Jeremy Legat, Russell Roberts and Robin Ward. There’s not a duff performance from any of them.
It’s a crack cast in every way and even when the play talks too much in the final act, director Marcia Kash infuses the sort of forceful pace you only sense when a director is firmly in charge.
Are there cavils? Not many. Clark’s set seems a touch too tall even for English country house standards. The creepy music that plays now and then is a bit of a giveaway when bad things are about to happen. And what’s with the peculiar makeup Boyle is sporting in her first scene? These are petty criticisms in a show that presses all the right buttons to provide a pleasing evening of first rate entertainment.
Want to know about the plot? Well, there’s a search for a missing treasure, valuable enough to provoke a couple of murders. And of course, because it’s Christie, you’ll be led in several wrong directions before the killer is revealed.
That’s as much as I’m going to say about Dame Agatha’s cunning little concoction. If you want to know more, who did it and what the treasure actually is, you’ll have to go see “Spider’s Web.” Of the three Christie mysteries Aquarius has done recently this is by far the best in terms of direction, acting and production. So what are you waiting for? Stop reading this right now and call the box office. If you like mysteries that make you laugh, as well as shiver a little in your seat, this one’s for you.