“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” No, not that; that’s Rebecca. “We’ve become a race of Peeping Toms. What people ought to do is get outside their own house and look in for a change.” Close, but that’s Rear Window. “I couldn’t have dreamed it! Did I dream? Did I really, really dream?” Sorry, that’s Gaslight.
All these quotes swirl around the spellbinding production of The Girl on the Train, now air conditioning the Alley for its “Summer Chills” and the start of its 80th season. This is exactly the way to begin a season!
Usually the Chills program focuses on either an English country house murder mystery from the great one, Dame Agatha Christie, or a Victorian London-town detective murder mystery á la Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, starring Sherlock Holmes. This year, the company has gone moderne with this sparkling adaptation of Paula Hawkins’ 2015 bestseller. The 2016 movie version starring Emily Blunt was a modest success, but this theater version by Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel is so much smoother, wittier, and coherent than the film. It’s also thoroughly theatrical and a feast for the eyes.
We start with the oddest of mystery protagonists, Rachel (Elizabeth Bunch, in full pro mode), a divorced sad sack, still pining for her ex-husband Tom (Chris Hutchison, still sympathetic to his crazy ex-wife), who finds solace in any liquor nearby. She’s a mess, and her bedroom is littered with empty Chinese takeout and an assortment of empty booze bottles. She’ll drink anything to forget. She also has lost her job, so for the past six months has ridden the train into London pretending she still has a job. She borrows money from her ex, constantly calls him and, to be charitable, stalks him to the great annoyance of his current wife Anna. Her alcohol abuse plays havoc with her memory, and her constant blackouts have dulled her senses. Naturally, she’s the worst eyewitness.
The train stops daily at a crossing near her former family home, which is close to Tom and Anna’s (Michelle Elaine, slow boiling whenever Rachel comes over), and closer to the backyard of another couple, Scott and Megan (Dylan Godwin, excellent again, and Emily Neves (back in her old stomping ground and looking fabulous in Trevor Dion Scoggin-Bowen’s haute couture creations). This happy pair set off Rachel’s other obsession, more dangerous and much more fantastical. She dreams about their relationship, their apparent happy marriage, their wine drinking on the balcony, their embraces which seem so foreign to her now. She “spies” on them every trip until one day she sees the glamorous Megan kissing another man.
When stylish Megan, gallery owner and artist, turns up missing – and then dead – the play zooms off like a Ferrari and never looks back. Wagstaff and Abel speed into the tropes of every murder mystery, but with tongue firmly planted in cheek as they race around the Indy 500 curves. There’s the disgruntled detective (David Rainey, whose incredulous slow burns should be patented), red herrings, and false leads where any one of them could be the killer, all given the shiny patina from the Alley’s backstage wizards, and all under the streamlined direction from Casey Stangl.
Sleek and clean, lined in neon, Klara Zieglerova’s receding black reflective set slides aside and rearranges itself, while a train bridge railing above is used as crossover platform. Rachel is first seen stumbling drunk across the bridge or, we later learn, injured. Chandeliers, art lamps, picture frames drop from the flies, while Rachel’s messy bed or Tom and Anna’s bookcase rise from the trapdoors, and Yee Eun Nam’s video projections of newspaper headlines, storm clouds, and eerie facial closeups flow in the upper background. Elizabeth Harper’s ace lighting design illuminates even when the knotty plot keeps us in the dark. And Paul James Pendergast’s eerie score and sound design is appropriately dark and moody. Everything about the production is stunning, with a visual look that keeps the ominous mood front and center, as the play careens along full tilt.
If you like a truly inventive murder mystery, The Girl on the Train is the most luxurious ride. The view from the Alley’s observation car is splendid.
The Girl on the Train continues through August 30 at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays; and 7 p.m. Sundays at Alley Theatre, 615 Texas. For more information, call 713-220-5700 or visit alleytheatre.org. $36-$118.
