Review - The Murder on the Links - TRP - Another Agatha Christie Puzzle Box - 3 stars

Everybody seems to love a good murder mystery.  And every theater who puts one on stage, be it Theatre in the Round or the Guthrie, doesn’t have much of a problem selling tickets. I myself regularly devoured the works of Agatha Christie when I was younger and have quite a collection of her novels on my bookshelves.  “The Murder on the Links” was an older story I was less familiar with, though it features one of her beloved, quirky detectives on the case, Hercule Poirot. So if “Agatha Christie murder mystery with Hercule Poirot” is all you need to know that it’s the ticket for you, then you should get over to Theatre In The Round Players (TRP) and take in their production of Kate Danley’s adaptation of “The Murder On The Links.”  Nothing I say in the rest of this review should dissuade you.  If you need a little more information, then read on.

“I just adore crime.”

The pre-show announcement to the audience informed us the production of “Agatha Christie’s The Murder on the Links” is the world premiere of Danley’s adaptation (TRP also staged her adaptation of “The Mysterious Affair at Styles” just a couple of years back).  “Styles” was Poirot’s first appearance in a Christie novel, and “Links” is the follow-up.  The previous case (and play) are name-checked in the opening scene of this production but it’s a self-contained tale, so you don’t need prior exposure to any of these characters to follow this story.

“The fact that he was stabbed in the back points to this being a woman’s crime.”

And the story in “Murder on the Links” is a doozy, with so many twists and turns I honestly lost count (and also got a little confused, but Christie, Danley and this production pulled me back in and set me straight by the time it was over). Our narrator is Captain Arthur Hastings (Jake Leif) who serves as the trusty sidekick to detective Hercule Poirot (Ben Tallen) as well as our guide for the evening through the thorny plot.  Hastings and Poirot are summoned by an ominous letter to a small French town to assist a rich potential client with an unspecified problem that he fears may put him and his loved ones in danger.  However, this is set in 1920, and transportation then isn’t what it is now, so they unfortunately arrive just a bit too late - by the time they reach their destination, the man who wrote the letter is already dead, stabbed in the back out on a golf course (hence the title).  So the job changes instead to the pursuit of the man’s murderer.  And, as with most Agatha Christie mysteries, so it’s not really a spoiler, the corpse count doesn’t remain at just one.

“When you are dead, I can do as I please!”

Though murder is discussed, we do not witness one taking place in front of us, nor do we see a corpse.  The bodies in question are merely described to us.  Because, in Christie style, the point here isn’t the dead people, but the network of living people around them left behind, and affected by the events suddenly ripping their loved ones away from them.  This is also the cast of characters, of course, who make up our list of suspects.

“Sadly, with bleeding feet, love has come.”

Director Linda Paulsen has assembled quite the ensemble for this one (nearly 20 people) and uses them cleverly to populate this small town and make the world seem larger than just the detectives on the case and the suspicious people they interrogate.  There are numerous bits of side character work going on around the edges of the circular playing space, and the story in its center, from pre-show moments and throughout the evening, that add color to the human tapestry on display.  These sorts of clever touches extend to the design of the production as well.  The TRP space is stuffed full of set to the very edges on all sides, not an inch of space wasted by set designer Madeline Achen.  A tower on one side of the house and a room perched atop another of the four entrances have walls made of fabric, so when the illumination from lighting designer Mark Webb hits them one way, the walls appear solid, but if the light shifts, you can see through the walls to the space inside, where more action can take place in view of the audience.  And the parade of humanity wouldn’t be nearly as convincing if the actors, particularly the ones playing multiple roles, weren’t outfitted so ably by the work of costume designers Colleen O’Dell and Hunter Goldsmith.

“Your penetration is amazing, Hastings.”

Now, because this is Agatha Christie (and Hercule Poirot in particular), “The Murder on the Links” was always going to be a more cerebral affair than an action-oriented one.  The one drawback to this kind of detective story is that it’s so intellectual that it keeps much of the real human emotion involved in the situation at arm’s length.  This can make it hard to get invested in the story, apart from the intrinsic pleasure one gets from solving a complicated puzzle (which is still always a plus in a Christie mystery because the woman, and the adapter here, don’t leave any plot holes, all the many loose threads get tied up).  [Your mileage may vary: since my parents died, I find I’m less likely to enjoy death being treated as just another plot point in whatever media I’m consuming.  I think I expect more mess and emotion, and that’s not what a Christie murder mystery is hunting after.]

“We were quite the bachelor pair.”

Emotions themselves get swiftly pushed aside because we’ve got ground to cover plot-wise, and frankly the canvas is so crowded full of characters that it’s hard for anyone to get enough face time to make a real impression on the audience’s collective mind.  Part of the challenge of the production is just remembering who’s who.  We have the dead man’s widow Eloise (Megan Blakeley) and their adult son Jack (Bryce Bennyhoff) but they don’t get much time to grieve because they’ve either got to impart information or be moved around the plot’s chessboard by other characters who are talking about them in the context of the larger story.  There’s also the dead man’s potential mistress(?) Madame Daubreuil (Megan Rowe) and her mysterious and intense adult daughter Marthe (Paige Yanny). There are no less than four detectives on the case - in addition to Poirot and Hastings, there’s the local magistrate Hautet (Gerard Scheett) and a flamboyant, self-important French detective, tagged as Poirot’s nemesis, Giraud (James Ruth).  There’s also a plucky love interest for Hastings in the form of a young woman (Hannah Graff) who pops up in unexpected places to banter with him and then disappears, nicknamed Cinderella because he (and we) don’t find out her full identity until later in the action.  

“Without a doubt, it was the mafia!”

There’s more than one person with an assumed identity due to past misdeeds that required them to start a new life, and crimes in the past that resurface to mirror this case in the present.  There’s even a running joke about twins toward the very end of the proceedings that provides some much needed humor.  The parade of medical examiners, maids, mothers or nannies pushing baby carriages, waiters, vagrants, bakers, gardeners, general passersby, train porters, concierges, and waitresses is quite a feat of quick changes and multiple characters from the rest of the ensemble (Kiran Arquin, Chris Beason, Leo DeWolfe, Robin Gilmer, Brelee Harris, Cal Kathryn, Jeremy Lostetter, Stu Naber, Kristin Smith, and Carissa Wyant).  In addition, we have an assortment of accents from most members of the cast, some more successful than others.  There was also the unfortunate moment I got so confused that I thought a guy was trying to marry someone who was actually his half-sister (she wasn’t, but it took me a while to get myself out of that particular dead end path in the maze, because Christie can go to some dark, and darkly humorous, places sometimes, so it honestly didn’t seem like it was out of the question.)

“Crimes, though, are very much the same.”

The solution is a finely tuned series of events that make perfect sense when laid out by Poirot at the end of act two, but it will definitely keep you guessing.  It did me.  So if you’re looking for that kind of knotty plotting full of twists and turns and a satisfying resolution, “Agatha Christie’s The Murder on the Links” can give you your murder mystery fix for the holidays.  It’s also nice to see as one of several entries in this season’s lineup where TRP is giving audiences a chance to encounter new (and newish) plays and playwrights.

“I’m not your kind, and that brings trouble.”

Theatre in the Round Player (TRP)’s production of “Agatha Christie’s The Murder on the Links” runs through December 21, 2025 at their home in the Seven Corners neighborhood (245 Cedar Avenue, Minneapolis), Fridays & Saturdays at 7:30pm; Sundays at 2:00pm.

3 Stars - Recommended

 

 

Review - Souvenir - Gremlin Theatre - “When A High Brow Meets A Low Brow…” - 4 stars

It isn’t easy playing the role of a terrible singer.  It also isn’t easy playing the role of a gifted piano player.  But Gremlin Theatre has the best actors for each task in their production of the charming comedy “Souvenir, a Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins” by Stephen Temperley, directed with a delicate touch by Angela Timberman. A theater could go too hard on material like this, making the characters clowns or cartoons; a theater could also miss the comedy entirely if they lean too hard in the other direction.  Instead what we get, under director Timberman’s sure hand, is a story of two human beings who just want to make a little music, and to find an audience that appreciates their talents.  It is extremely funny, but also sweet in a way that tugs at your emotions now and again as well.  If you need a break from… well, everything these days, Gremlin Theatre has your ticket.

“I stepped from the wreckage a new woman!”

The terrible singer (a legendary one, really) is the Florence Foster Jenkins of the play’s subtitle, fearlessly portrayed by Cheryl Willis.  In order to be a convincing bad singer on stage, oddly enough you need to be a good singer to begin with - you need to know the right notes and the right rhythm in order to be able to reliably stay completely off key and out of step for an entire song in the most hilarious way possible.  Willis nails this in all of Jenkins’ rehearsals and performances throughout the play.

“What matters is what you hear in your head.”

Jenkins was a New York socialite in the 1930s and 1940s, known for her support of the classical music and opera scene, arranging concerts for others until friends urged her to put her own singing lessons to use and perform herself.  It was immediately apparent that the woman couldn’t sing, but what she lacked in accuracy, she made up for in commitment to being an entertainer.  Her audiences struggled mightily to contain their laughter and preserve Florence’s dignity.  But the train wreck nature of her performances quickly became the talk of the town and everyone wanted a ticket.  This lead to a record deal, and finally even a sold out concert to raise money for the troops in World War II at the famous Carnegie Hall.

“Am I crazy to keep writing songs no one wants to sing?”

Her young accompanist on the piano was Cosme McMoon, who had dreams of becoming a composer himself, portrayed by Jake Endres.  The conceit of the play is it’s November 1964, 20 years to the day since Florence died, and McMoon, now a pianist at a local jazz bar, is regaling the audience with tales of his 12 years working with Jenkins, on stage and off.  Though Jenkins’ singing offended his ears, Cosme was charmed by her determination and love of music, and he also needed to pay the rent.  What starts as a job quickly turns into an awkward but endearing friendship between the two.  

“I wondered what life had planned to temper his enthusiasm.”

Endres makes playing the piano and performing popular songs from the first half of the 20th century look effortless, which it is most definitely not.  And he does this while also playing the role of Cosme, both the young man working with Florence, and the older man looking back on those years with bewildered fondness.  This isn’t a romantic comedy.  The two characters are decades apart in age in the past, and it’s clearly implied a number of times that Cosme is gay, though that side of his life doesn’t appear on stage in this story.  The degree of difficulty, both musically and emotionally, for both performers is high but Endres and Willis pull it off in style.

“It seems to me that some notes are not quite… secure.”

Speaking of style, the production also looks fantastic.  Scenic and lighting designer (and Gremlin’s Technical Director) Carl Schoenborn, creates a world on Gremlin’s thrust stage that segues easily from jazz bar of the present to rehearsal room and concert halls of the past with a shift in the colorful and evocative lighting, and Florence’s comings and goings in and out of the dark as Cosme conjures her memory then returns to his present life without her.  The black and white checkered floor is complemented by the drape over the grand piano, and with little else but a chair, small table and phonograph cabinet, along with some bright red curtains draping the archway behind the stage, and stone vases on columns for flowers, this production and these two actors create entire worlds, and an unlikely partnership.

“After all, one is not a trombone.”

Florence was big on her costumes, flamboyant visual flourishes to go with each of her big musical numbers, and the production of “Souvenir” doesn’t disappoint in this department either. Rawl Blackett’s original costume design, and Sarah Bauer’s additional work on costumes as well as prop design, give Willis everything she needs for Florence’s unique style on stage and in real life.  Kudos to everyone (stage manager Maren Findlay, assistant stage manager AJ Jerome, with Blackett also pitching in on wardrobe duties) pulling off all the transitions and the multiple rapid costume changes they required.  C. Andrew Mayer’s sound design gives us a taste of what those audiences must have been like back then, both their applause and their laughter (with occasional heckling thrown in).

“All the mess and smells and joys of life.”

One might well wonder, how does a playwright get a full-length play out of something that seems a bit ridiculous. But “Souvenir” isn’t a one joke premise.  It’s an exploration of how two people can find and support one another, creating an artistic bond, as well as a study of someone who genuinely doesn’t hear the bad notes.  In her head, Florence sings like the angels she occasionally costumes herself as.  And since most of her concert appearances were for charities she believed in and supported personally from her own wealth (she didn’t need the money from a music career) and she supported Cosme’s work as a composer as well (though she couldn’t sing his work any better than the classics), she’s ultimately a benign figure with a good heart.

“Why can’t we live in the music forever?  Why can’t we go on and on?”

Florence and Cosme are both characters you can easily find yourself rooting for, despite the fact that Florence has no business singing in concert halls or having her voice preserved on vinyl records.  Given her music career happened nearly a hundred years ago now, and over seventy years after Florence’s death Meryl Streep was playing her in a movie version of her life, and here she is still fascinating audiences today, you gotta hand it to an unusual artist that has more staying power that a lot of other people of her time, or since.  As Florence herself once said, “People may say that I can’t sing, but no one can ever say that I didn’t sing.”

“Souvenir, a Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins” runs at the Gremlin Theatre (550 Vandalia Street in Saint Paul, MN) through Sunday, November 30, 2025 (Wednesday through Saturdays at 7:30pm, Sundays at 3pm; no performance on Thursday, November 27th, Thanksgiving).

4 Stars - Highly Recommended

[Photo (l to r) Jake Endres (Cosme McMoon) and Cheryl Willis (Florence Foster Jenkins) in Gremlin Theatre’s production of “Souvenir” - photo by Alyssa Kristine Photography]