Farce master Ken Ludwig proves the perfect playwright to adapt Agatha Christie’s Murder On The Orient Express for the stage, evidence of which is now on display at La Mirada Theatre For The Performing Arts where Sheldon Epps has directed a pitch-perfect production of a pitch-perfect play.

Not that Ludwig would seem the most obvious choice to recreate Hercule Poirot’s train trek from Istanbul to Paris, there being little or no chance for the writer of Lend Me A Tenor and Leading Ladies to employ the tricks of his farce-writing trade. (You won’t find any characters hiding behind doors, or slamming them shut, or dressing in drag, for example.)

 Still, as fans of the finest Christie adaptations will tell you, Dame Agatha works best with a light touch (just one reason Kenneth Branagh’s 2017 Orient Express proved such a dismal disaster), and Ludwig’s is light as a feather, and frequently funny as can be.

It helps that, unlike just about any other Christie classic, there’s but one English character on board the express, fortuitous for comedy king Ludwig because if there was anyone Dame Agatha liked poking affectionate fun at, it was “foreigners,” and the suspects here are indeed an international bunch.

 A dramatic prologue introduced by none other than Poirot himself (Tony Amendola, giving Finney, Suchet, and Ustinov a run for their Belgian francs) starts things off with a strikingly staged flashback to the kidnap-murder of nine-year-old heiress Daisy Armstrong (Hope Noel Bradley).

After that we’re off to meet the passengers aboard the Callais Coach, adeptly whittled down in number to the following:

• Countess Elena Andrenyi (Zarah Mahler), a glamorous Hungarian with convenient medical training.
• Colonel John Arbuthnot (Matthew Floyd Miller), a Scottish military officer traveling with his English sweetheart Mary Debenham (Rachel Seiferth).
• Princess Natalia Dragomiroff (Anne Gee Byrd), a silver-haired Russian royal escaped from the Bolshevik Revolution and her Swedish missionary traveling companion Greta Ohlsson (Julia Aks).
• Harriet Hubbard (Christine Dunford), a four-times-married American with a take-no-prisoners attitude and a wardrobe to match.
• Samuel Rachett (Matthew Floyd Miller), a cutthroat American businessman accompanied by his milquetoast American secretary Hector McQueen (Will Block).

 Also along for the ride are Monsieur Bouc (Time Winters), Poirot’s longtime friend in charge of the Orient Express, and Michel The Conductor (Brad Culver), whose name says it all.

When one of the above is stabbed to death, who better to investigate than Belgian sleuth Poirot, and if Christie’s daring solution to the crime won’t come as a surprise to the millions who’ve read or seen Murder On The Orient Express in its many incarnations, the moral dilemma it offers Hercule Poirot gives Ludwig’s play a dollop of darkness and depth amidst the laughter.

 You won’t find a finer comedic-dramatic ensemble around town than the one assembled on the La Mirada stage, nor one more clearly relishing the chance to play the most eccentric of characters in the most delicious of accents, and since just about everyone is hiding at least one secret, a number of cast members get to play two characters in one while doing some deep dramatic digging in the play’s final scene, one brilliantly staged as a series of strikingly lit flashbacks amidst Poirot’s trademark elucidation of the case.

 Adding to the magic is a production design that easily merits being dubbed Broadway caliber, beginning with Stephen Gifford’s stunningly realized pair of train coaches spanning every inch of the La Mirada stage.

Shon LeBlanc’s elegant costumes are period perfection as are Terry Hanrahan’s multitude of props and EB Bohks’ hair, wig, and makeup designs, and who better to light all of the above than the always extraordinary Jared A. Sayeg, with sound whiz Josh Bessom completing the design package with a mix of appropriately jolting train effects and suspense-enhancing music.

 Casting is by Julia Flores. Nike Doukas is dialect coach. Michael Roman is technical director.

John W. Calder III is production stage manager and Lisa Palmire is assistant stage manager.

To the oft-produced Christie-penned stage classics And Then There Were None, The Mousetrap, and Witness For The Prosecution can now be added Ken Ludwig’s Murder On The Orient Express. Queen Of Crime fans will be in Agatha Christie heaven.

La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, 14900 La Mirada Boulevard, La Mirada.
www.lamiradatheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
November 2, 2018
Photos: Jason Niedle

Tags: Agatha Christie, Ken Ludwig, La Mirada Theatre For The Performing Arts, Los Angeles Theater Review, McCoy Rigby Entertainment