Stage Review - A Party to Murder (Olympia Little Theatre)
Stage Review - A Party to Murder
Presented By: Olympia Little Theatre - Olympia , WA
Show Run: May 09 - May 25, 2025
Date Reviewed: Sunday, May 11, 2025 (Opening Weekend)
Run Time: 2 Hours, 15 Minutes (including a 15 minute intermission)
Reviewed By: Greg Heilman
A Party to Murder isn’t a farce, it’s a murder mystery. What may seem like a simple and a matter of fact statement, it’s something playwrights Marcia Kash and Douglas Hughes are quick to differentiate, probably because their 1996 play, one of at least six plays that the pair have written together, feels like one, or the other, or some combination of both. It’s a play that feels like a satire of an Agatha Christie mystery, specifically And Then There Were None, but it also plays as a sort of tribute to her, while at the same time never taking itself altogether seriously. So, one could make the mistake in categorizing it as a farce, but in this case I’ll defer to the authors. More than likely, it’s inherently funny simply because they are, their relationship is one they’ve self-described as “like a marriage, but without the sex…..so, yeah, like a marriage.” That’s the sort of humor that is imbued in all of their work, as it is with A Party to Murder, Olympia Little Theatre’s latest offering, running on stage through May 25 in a production directed by Dave Marsh.
The story takes place on Halloween, in a rustic house, on a tiny island, where a group has gathered like they have every Halloween to play a murder mystery game. It’s a high stakes game where one of the guests is the victim and one is the murderer, all setup by the host, Charles, and the one able to guess the murderer correctly is allowed to ask for anything he or she wants from the others as their prize, the sum of the guests’ entry fee being used to fund said request. This year’s guest list includes some returning invitees, wealthy business magnate Elwood and his young model girlfriend McKenzie, Willy, a former football player who is now in a wheelchair after an accident (and one with a joke seemingly always in the barrel), and of course the host Charles, who is a largely successful mystery writer in his own right. Newcomers to this year’s event, replacements for two who couldn’t make it this year, are sisters Valerie and Henri, the former more outgoing and confident, the latter a bit more shy and introverted, co-owners of their family business. When the winner of the contest is revealed as someone who hasn’t had the pleasure previously, a combination of anger and nervousness overtakes the group, everyone wondering what will be asked of them, but when life begins imitating art, and the dead body of one of the guests is discovered, that’s when things really take a turn, the first dead body of one of the guests.
There is a point, though, when playwrights can go a bit too far, and my feeling is that this pair, as good as this show is generally, have bitten off a bit much here, as they’ve taken the story arc that I’ve just described and connected the dots to a murder that occurred twenty years ago. Well, a disappearance really. The “Phantom Five” disappeared from the same area, from the same rustic house on the same tiny island, and when the group finds an artifact, perhaps even a clue, from that group inside the cabin, they’re left to wonder whether it’s real or part of another ruse setup by their mystery writer host. For my part, this is three layers into a play that turns something that should be a quickly paced whodunit into a two and a half hour show that, at times, and as a result of trying to reach for too much, feels like a bit of a slog. It does wrap everything up and the playwrights do connect all of the dots, it just takes a long, twisty, and windy way to get there.
Since I’ve been coming to Olympia Little Theatre, I’ve been suitably impressed with their use of the space from a design perspective. It’s a small space, configured in a thrust, meaning that there are seats around three sides of it, with general seating so that patrons choose their location in a first-come first-serve process. For A Party to Murder, set designer Cathy McCanse again has made good use of the space provided for her design, covering all of the required bases for a murder mystery, and all of the standard components, including the bar, the library/bookcase, a window to show the requisite rain and thunderstorm through, fireplace, and of course the furniture, first the table around which the group sits for their murder mystery game, and then the various chairs and sofas to sit when the dead bodies start showing up. I like Cathy’s design, and Dave’s overall vision for the play, a venue like this is perfect for a story that doesn’t require a lot of lengthy scene changes with large pieces moving on or off stage. The vision of the rustic cabin is displayed not just in the color palette used within the furniture and accessories in the room, but also the lack of bright lighting (designed by Michelle Koenen), most of that supplied by table lamps or lanterns after the power goes out (of course it does!). In fact, the space sort of feels damp, and when the storm starts outside, it feels even more so.
Length and amount the writers have taken on aside, the telling of this is well done. The actors present their characters in the way they were designed, with perhaps a few exceptions, and they capture their personalities well. Charles, for instance, played by Jamie Keenan-deVargas, last seen in OLT’s No Exit, portrays the aloof, conceited mystery writer, who always knows more than everyone else, consistently with the character’s financial and social station in life. Jamie has a nuance to his movements, in the way he speaks while pouring a drink, for example, that speaks to his wealthy stature. Bill Alsdurf, Jr. plays the corporate tycoon Elwood, a character who owns well over 100 companies and isn’t afraid to hold anything over anyone else in order to gain control over another one, something sisters Valerie and Henri learn first hand. Bill carries himself with the confident posture his character demands and speaks loudly and with a command that immediately sets him in a power position as compared with everyone else in the room, except maybe for Charles, who simply brushes Elwood off. Mika Daniels plays Elwood’s young model girlfriend, not his wife he is quick to point out, in a role that feels more about looks than about substance, and with Mika’s quiet delivery, I found it difficult this past Sunday to contradict that feeling. The character as described by the authors is witty, extroverted, and tough on the outside. Many times during the matinee performance, it was difficult to hear Mika speak, even in the small space that is Olympia Little Theatre, so while I have no issue with any actor playing against how the character is described in the script, I would have liked to have seen just a bit more passion out of Mika, and for sure more volume. But I will say, she’s a young actor, and this is something that comes with time and confidence, just as it will with Anthony Keen and his portrayal of Willy. Anthony understands the character, delivers the lines and the jokes, but there are moments early on when Elwood gets under Willy’s skin and Willy is downright angry, enough to pound the table, and in these moments, I felt that Anthony was holding back a bit. I also found that, and this was something I noticed with a few of the actors, that he paused after another actor’s lines before delivering his, rather than either jumping on the previous line or naturally reacting. Again, that’s timing, and this being his second show, that sort of thing will come with time, but other than those little things, I found Anthony to be a likable and funny Willy. All that said, though, murder mysteries need to be delivered quickly and with a dialogue that is fast-paced to keep the suspense at a high level and the audience engaged, this is especially imperative in a show that approaches three hours after intermission is factored in. All of these pauses, and with the lines that are not entirely audible, each contribute to the slowing of that pace, making it more difficult for the audience to remain engaged.
Possibly the best performances, or the most engaging from my point of view, come from the sisters, Valerie and Henri, played by Andrea Gordon and Isabel Nixon Klein. The pair are clearly close, the co-own their family’s business, inherited from their father upon his death, but have two different ideas around how to run it, and two distinctly different personalities. Andrea’s Valerie is the big sister, the more confident one, and the more assertive, while Isabel’s Henri is quieter, more secretive, and not nearly as mature. Regardless of their disparate personalities, they are indeed close, in fact Henri in many cases finishes her sister’s sentences, though Isabel’s timing was sometimes off on Sunday. When Andrea and Isabel are in sync with that delivery, it’s a bit spooky, and when it works, there’s a certain mystery about it that adds to the story. Otherwise, though, these are two good performances, their delivery, the way they react to each other and the other actors is spot on, and they manage the emotional side of their roles extremely well, the pair are very entertaining to watch.
A Party to Murder is a little bit of a lot of things. It’s part farce, part satire, part love letter to the murder mystery genre, and part tribute to Agatha Christie. And because it tackles so much, it’s on the long side, clocking in at just short of 3 hours when you include intermission. While it does feel that long at times, it also does capture the humor that the playwrights have built into it, and the suspense of the mystery is there, too. But if this group is able to speed up their dialogue delivery as an ensemble to match some of the very good performances that there are in the show, thereby quickening the pace and keeping the level of suspense at a high level throughout, then A Party to Murder will be able to reach its true potential.
A Party to Murder runs on stage at Olympia Little Theatre through May 25. For more information, including ticket availability and sales, visit https://olympialittletheater.org/.
Photo credit: Scott Ellgen
