Clue - review

[Jane Zussman]

I was curious to see how the professional touring company took on the madcap spoof Clue that we saw done by MSU Theatre two and a half years ago. MSU had us looking down on a classic game board of all the rooms, complete with doors and walls —impressive but some sight lines blocked if you weren’t sitting in the audience center section. This touring company smoothly brought all the rooms onstage as needed at Wharton’s Great Hall, with elegant backdrops and hinged pieces to recreate the classic whodunit mystery mansion, Boddy Manor.

Clue was written by Sandy Rustin based on the screenplay of Jonathan Lynn’s campy 1985 film that has reportedly become a cult classic (which I have not seen but am now motivated to search for on streaming). The show is set in a McCarthy red-scare 1954 Washington DC, offering plenty of opportunities for blackmail.Delightfully stereotyped and stylized characters are tossed into a blender of suspicion and the plot twists pile up with the bodies in a well-choreographed whirlwind.

Adam Brett as Wadsworth the Butler (or IS he?) serves as ringmaster of this circus and he and all actors deserve kudos for keeping up with the stylized hysteria. Dance and Fight Captain Taylor Tveten deserves praise, along with the cast, for the meticulously precise takes and physical hijinks that make this show fun. It features recorded music and dance/chase sequences that make it feel like a musical, although it is not.

Clue runs only about an hour and a half, with no intermission. It continues through April 12 with tickets at https://whartoncenter.evenue.net/events/WC-CLUE?_gl=1*hbuimx*_gcl_au*MTY5OTU5NDYzNS4xNzc1NjE0NTk2*_ga*MTg0NzAyODAyOS4xNzc1NjE0NTk2*_ga_LKH6ZHKNTC*czE3NzU2MTQ1OTUkbzEkZzAkdDE3NzU2MTQ1OTUkajYwJGwwJGgyMzg4MjUxNzM

Jane Zussman

G.L.U.T. List

(Greater Lansing Ubiquitous Theatre)

cell 517-930-0932

JSZu...@gmail.com

http://www.greaterlansingtheatre.net 

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