Can murder be dull? Well, perhaps not the committing of the crime, but sometimes the explanation and solution of it, as witnessed in the Alley Theatre’s world premiere adaptation of Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (serialized in British magazine London Evening News in 1925, and soon published as a novel in 1926). Many adaptations followed for stage, film, radio, and TV.
Because of its ingenious narrator-driven plot with its numerous twists and curves, Christie’s book has been deemed a classic of its genre. It was her third detective novel to feature her inspired creation, Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot (David Sinaiko). Here, he has been summoned out of retirement to work his powers of deduction when wealthy Roger Ackroyd (Shawn Hamilton) is discovered dead in his locked study with an antique knife embedded in his neck.
This version for the Alley’s annual Summer Chills has been adapted by frequent Alley director and actor, Mark Shanahan, It’s a handsome production to be sure, with an English manor house, Fernly Park, ripped from the pages of Stately Homes of England.
Posh and elegant, it’s replete with stained glass fan lights over the study’s pocket doors, shaded sconces on the polished wood-paneled walls, a refreshing cool patio with rolling landscape beyond, leather chesterfield sofa and chair, and the ubiquitous rolling bar cart. Perfectly pictured by set designer Klara Zieglerova, eerily and specifically lit by Rui Rita, and costumed with period flair by Helen Huang, this is the consummate setting for a murder mystery.
There will be no spoilers in this review. What’s the point of a who-done-it if you’re told who done it? Ah, that’s up to you, dear amateur sleuth. Can you outfox that ol’ Dame Queen of Crime herself? Good luck to you, with the plot’s various characters, all with specific motives, each with secrets of their own.
Let’s see, there’s Ackroyd himself, who’s been carrying on an affair with a recently widowed lady in the village, who’s suspected of poisoning her abusive husband. He didn’t kill himself did he? Every one in the hamlet of King’s Abbot thrives on gossip, none more than Caroline (Elizabeth Bunch), the sister of the good doctor James Shepperd (Christopher Salazar), who narrates our tale and becomes Poirot’s Dr. Watson, his trusted assistant in solving the mystery.
Along with the murder, there’s also been a theft of money. Ackroyd’s sister—in-law Gertrude (Susan Koozin) is strapped for money, would she be so desperate to kill for it? Her daughter Flora (Melissa Molano), engaged to Ackroyd’s stepson Ralph, pronounced “Raif,” (Dylan Goodwin), seems innocent enough, but she, too, has a bombshell confession that could scuttle her pleas of innocence.
Ralph has run away after the murder and his footprints have been found on the windowsill and in the garden. He must be the culprit announces Inspector Raglan (David Rainey) with the absolute conviction of a member of the constabulary who doesn’t really know much of anything. Family friend and big game hunter Major Blunt (Brandon Hearnsberger), staying at the estate, also needs funds. As he was one of the last persons to see Ackroyd alive, could he be the killer? But he’s a loyal old friend? Surely, not him.
Other than Ralph, suspicion turns heavily toward officious butler Parker (Todd Waite), who found the body with Dr. Shepperd. Did he call the doctor after the murder? He says no. Well, then, who did place the call? And what about housemaid Ursula (Skyler Sinclair), who’s been unceremoniously sacked by Ackroyd. I mean, really, doesn’t the butler always do it in these English mysteries?
Oh, but wait, there’s Ackroyd’s secretary, Miss Russell (Melissa Pritchett), who has an unnatural curiosity about poisons and a missing son to be discovered during a later plot point. She’s very suspicious. They’re all rather suspicious, as is every character in any Christie murder mystery. Each one has motive and means. What’s Poirot to do? Ha, just ask him. “I know everything,” he demurely declares.
On and on swim the red herrings, stirring up waves and eddies to deflect and mystify. It’s all complicated and convoluted, and, yet, somewhat pastel. This story’s not blood red, it’s pink. There’s a knife fight between Blunt and Poirot, but I missed the climax because a man behind me was having a convulsive coughing fit and the woman in the row ahead was frantically searching through her purse for a soothing lozenge, and the passing of said cough drop misdirected me just long enough as the knife was thrown. I heard the audience gasp and then saw the knife sticking in the floor next to Poirot. It must have been quite dramatic – and probably dangerous to stage.
But everything else is people talking: literally on the telephone in their own pool of light, or seated sedately on the divan, or making an entrance from the staircase or through the doors to the garden. This is a polite murder mystery with everyone’s hair in place and clothes neatly pressed. I wish Bunch’s Caroline could have been used more. She’s the most intuitive of them all, except for Poirot, of course. She’s like the dizzy housewife in Hitchcock’s Frenzy, the wife of the lead police detective, whose questions and deductions are always one step ahead of her husband’s.
Sinaiko’s Poirot seems more gruff than we remember him. Not as prissy as Branaugh’s film characterization nor as psychotically cool as David Suchet’s BBC detective, Sinaiko plays him rough around the edges. He does have a nice little twittering laugh, though, that softens him nicely. Maybe, as he says early on, he really wants to stay retired; that this kind of work takes too much out of him. “The pursuit takes a toll.”
Maybe he deserves to shout too much at the suspects. He’s earned it. With his turned up waxed mustache, he’s a fine image of what Poirot would have been in his latter days – still urbane, nattily dressed, and firing all those little gray cells to solve the case.
Murder is good entertainment, fit for a summer’s night, with a clever twist you may, or probably may not, see coming. It’s classic Christie, and as classy as any Alley Summer Chills show can be. Elementary, as that other famous sleuth might say.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd continues through August 27 at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays and Sundays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays at Alley Theatre, 615 Texas. For more information, call 713-220-5700 or visit alleytheatre.org. $35-$81.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
