Clue!

If you have never played the iconic board game Clue, or Cluedo, you have truly missed a cultural icon. If you have never seen the Christopher Lloyd, Tim Curry, and Susan Sarandon classic film based on the game, you must remedy that immediately. It ranks right up there with Kindergarten Cop and Elf with movies I can quote almost word for word. The play based on the movie is just as madcap and slapstick, and more impressive from the sheer energy exuded to perform the choreographed blocking. This energy is what drives the show, and what I felt was missing from the majority of the latest staging of the classic participating in Hennepin Theater Trust’s choices for Broadway Across America.

The show is brief – a mere eighty minutes – and aligns nearly perfectly with the film version. In this latest staging, Yvette, the maid, was difficult to understand as her fake French accent was too thick. The Butler kept throwing away his lines, confusing droll with dismissive. My parents had a hard time hearing what either of them was saying. Colonel Mustard’s entrance was awkward, and his attempt to play the bumbling idiot lacked the fake gravitas that a military man should exude to play the part. Mrs. White, dressed all in black, was good at her role – portraying her as a Wednesday Addams type character. However, her pacing was so slow and in the presence of the rest of the cast and didn’t do anything to bolster energy. Mrs. Peacock had excellent comedic timing, and great physical gag humor. However, weighed down by the rest of the cast’s weak reactions, her characterization fell flat. The same went for poor Mr. Green, who was also hilarious, although his initial physical gags seemed stilted by the lack of energy in the rest of the cast as well.

The energy picked up slightly as the choreographed dance of the search of the home led to…a sudden stop in the show.

It was the second time in a year that a show at the Orpheum Theater in Minneapolis that I attended was halted mid-show for a technical problem. Thankfully, this time the show resumed. Ironically, the pace of the show picked up after the break. The three people sitting behind us and I were speculating (as theater geeks do) about what went wrong to cause the show to halt. The lights and sound were okay, not great sound but not noticeably disturbed. My assumption is one of the trap doors on the intricate set wouldn’t open and that it threw some of the timing off for the rest of the show until it finally stuck completely. This would be supported by the idea that the timing was far better as the ending of the show arrived and the madcap scene at the end where everyone becomes the murderer in subsequent re-enacted scenes from the show. The butler finally came through with the charisma he needed to lead the show, and the ending was a mad rush of fun.

The script is enjoyable, and the set and choreography always impressive. Although this tour didn’t bring the energy, I still enjoyed the antics in Boddy Manor.

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