There’s a new gal in town and she’s a doozy.
When we first meet her in her cozy home in the sleepy English hamlet of St. Mary Mead, she’s sitting in pain in her worn wing chair. She has sprained her ankle and awaits her new house girl to arrive to start breakfast. There’s a knitting basket nearby and an old photo on the table of a young couple. She’s still spry, you see, because this is the famous creation Miss Jane Marple, perhaps the most admired of all Agatha Christie’s amateur sleuths.
As to why Miss Marple has waited this long to appear on any American stage is a mystery all its own, but Alley Theatre is to be commended for her sparkling debut in The Mirror Crack’d.
A spinster, “she knows people,” Miss Marple says with just a whiff of self-satisfaction, and that makes her dangerous to those who commit crime. That also makes her a pain in the ass to Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard, Dermot Craddock, who Jane helped raise as a boy when his mother died. He has come to tell her of the murder at Gossington Hall of local woman Mrs. Heather Leigh at a party thrown by film star Marina Gregg, played with all the glamour and allure by Elizabeth Bunch (who has never looked so beguiling).
Craddock doesn’t want to admit any more details than he has to, because he knows Miss Marple will be one – or two – steps ahead of him. He’s already misread a previous murder case because of her. She figured it out first. It’s a lovely game of cat and mouse. With Craddock as mouse.
That Miss Marple is played by Houston theater pro Susan Koozin and Craddock portrayed by Dylan Godwin, is a match to rival Wimbledon. Koozin oozes old world charm and a bit of crank, while Godwin is perpetually put off by her incessant nosiness and utter forthrightness and an almost infallible sense of the evils people do to one another. He sputters while she sparkles.
As this being a wickedly clever adaptation by Rachel Wagstaff from a minor outing from the “Queen of Crime,” this game is very much afoot and extremely entertaining.
Under the inspired direction from Delicia Turner Sonnenberg, Mirror reflects the glories that the august Alley Theatre can display in a rather B-type summer read. As Craddock explains to Miss Marple what transpired during the party, the guests (suspects) arrive in her living room for exposition and to set the scene. Typical of Christie, there’s an array of characters who seemingly have no motive, but then again any one of them could be guilty. As more are introduced and tell their tales, the plot thickens exponentially.
The crazed carousel includes comeback film star Marina (Bunch); Cheery Baker, Miss Marple’s house girl who’s serving canapes at the party to make extra money (Alexandra Szeto-Joe); Marina’s blustery and arrogant director husband Jason Rudd (Chris Hutchison); nobodies Mr. and Mrs. Leigh (Jamie Razanour and David Rainey); Giuseppe Ranzo, Marina’s trusted assistant who’s been working for her for years (Christopher Salazar); Marple’s best friend and village busybody Dolly Bantry (Michelle Elaine); Marina’s sneezing and bossy secretary Ella (Ashlyn Evans); and film star wanna-be Lola Brewster, who’s to co-star with Marina (Melissa Molano).
It’s a heady mix and all delightfully portrayed without a trace of irony or one-upmanship. Since most of these actors are from the Alley’s resident company, they all know how to play off, for, and against each other with unerring skill. They are delightfully comfortable and it shows.
Naturally, the plot ties itself into knots, leading us down cul-de-sacs and shooting off red herrings like a Covent Garden fish monger. The set designed by Paige Hathaway, in her Alley debut, is impressionistic and surprising with its giant sliding panels that reveal another finely wrought scene like the great Hall, a movie studio sound stage, a dressing room, with a pastel hint of English rolling countryside at the wings. Hathaway is invited back to Houston any time.
And the costumes by Nicole Jesinth Smith bespeak the ‘60s, old Hollywood glamour, and country tweeds with a smiling joy. Look at those marabou cuffs on Marina’s aubergine peignoir. There is stellar work from everyone on the crew. All around, it is mighty impressive.
Although Wagstaff’s update (this is not the 1980 Elizabeth Taylor/Angela Lansbury movie plot) retains many of Christie’s politically incorrect thoughts on class and race, there’s always Koozin’s knowing wink, Godwin’s slow burns, Rainey’s Mr. Cellophane who nobody sees; Salazar’s fiery Italian; and Hutchison’s toxic masculinity to lead us into the macabre but familiar mood of a Christie mystery.
This may be the Alley’s best Summer Chills in seasons.
The Mirror Crack’d continues through August 24 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. $50-$108.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.
