Playwright Steven Dietz has taken Agatha Christie’s 1923 whodunnit Murder On The Links and adapted it as a rollicking, tongue-in-cheek six-actor farce that only the most diehard Christie purist could fail to love.

The plot unfolding on the International City Theatre stage is essentially the same one that helped establish the future Dame Agatha as The Queen Of Crime in only her third novel (and the second to feature famed Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot).

A letter has arrived from a certain Paul T. Renauld begging Poirot (Louis Lotorto) to “waste no time in crossing to France. The threat is imminent, and you are my only chance.”

Thus entreated, the world’s greatest detective and his right-hand-man Captain Arthur Hastings (Daniel A. Stevens) leave London for Merlinville-Sur-Mer, France.

Alas, upon arrival, Poirot is greeted by the devastating news that the body of Paul Renauld has been discovered lying in a freshly dug grave, face down with a knife in his back while his wife Madame Renaud lay bound and gagged in her bed.

Suspects include the Renaulds’ son Jack, their neighbors Theodora Van Hoven and her daughter Marte, Bella Duveen, the exotic beauty Hastings had recently met on a London-bound train, and two mysterious men from Santiago, Chile.

The ensuing plot contains the same complex mix of clues and red herrings that Christie was justly famed for, and a solution you won’t see coming, one that only a man with Poirot’s famed “little grey cells” can deduce, and certainly not Inspector Giraud, the pompous French investigating officer who’s not about to be bested by a little mustachioed man from Belgium.

And the aforementioned featured characters are only a handful of the nearly two-dozen brought vivbrantly to life by supporting players Gabbie Adner, James Simenc, Brian Stanton, and Tina Van Berckelaer.

Director Todd Nielsen once again proves himself a master at staging physical comedy and adding his own inspired visuals. (Actors standing in for a hedge and a hatrack are one clever Nielsen addition to Dietz’s script and the miniatures used to illustrate a climatic action sequence are another.)

Along the way, Adner, Simenc, Stanton, and Van Berckelaer execute one lickety-split character switch after another. (In one sequence, Van Berckelaer’s gendarme becomes Madame Renaud who then becomes Theodora Van Hoven. In another, Simenc alternates back and forth between Giraud and Jack at the drop or addition of a hat. And Adner goes back and forth between Dulcie and Marte in a hilarious cat fight that must be seen to be believed.)

Most memorably of all, Poirot uses a set of nine “costumed” bowling pins to “reconstruct the entire case from the beginning, using the powers of Logic, Sequence and Motive.”

All of this adds up to the most inventive fun ICT audiences have seen since 2013’s Around The World In 80 Days (also starring Stanton) and 2018’s The 38 Steps (also starring Lotorto).

From a distance, you’d almost swear it was David Suchet recreating his TV role as Poirot, though the divine Lotorto adds his own delicious touches to the master sleuth, and the delightful Stevens makes for the most engagingly loyal (if not always astute) sidekick since Sherlock’s Dr. Watson.

ICT favorite Stanton shines as the murder victim, a French police commissioner, and a (female) hotel clerk straight out of Monty Python; Van Berckelaer sizzles as the victim’s calculating mistress, his grieving widow, and the lawyer defending Jack; Simenc’s deliciously self-important Inspector Giraud and his rakish Jack Renault are both standouts; Adner is absolutely splendid as both the etherial Marte and the mysterious Bella Duveen; and these are less than half of the roles brought to vivid life by these four fabulous, multitasking stars.

Last but not least, the talents of scenic designer Destiny Manewal, lighting designer Donna Ruzika, costume designer Kimberly DeShazo, sound designer Dave Mickey, properties designers Patty and Gordon Briles, and hair and wig designer Anthony Gagliardi add up to the most inventive and colorful of production designs.

Murder On The Links is produced by caryn desai. Donna R. Parsons is stage manager and Daphne Hinton is assistant stage manager. Casting is by Michael Donovan, CSA, and Richie Ferris, CSA. Lucy Pollak is publicist.

As more and more early Agatha Christie novels enter the public domain, you can expect more and more of them to be adapted for the stage, but I’m guessing none will be as imaginative and inspired as Steven Dietz’s Murder On The Links.

International City Theatre, Long Beach Performing Arts Center, 300 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach.
www.InternationalCityTheatre.org

–Steven Stanley
October 26, 2024
Photos: Kayte Deioma

Tags: Agatha Christie, International City Theatre, Los Angeles Theater Review, Steven Dietz