Ava Oran, Lloyd Pedersen, Neil Thompson, Michael Panzarotto and ReedCampbell (Photo by @Mechanical Dragons)
Reviewed by Blaine Berhane
The Group Rep at the Lonny Chapman Theatre
Through Nov. 1
RECOMMENDED
Neil Thompson, Eils Avalos and Ava Oran (Photo by @Mechanical Dragons)
This review is part of the Stage Raw/Unusual Suspects Youth Journalism Fellowship
Spider’s Web is a murder mystery more capable of making you laugh than jump, and this rendering at The Group Rep earns every laugh. A quick-witted leading lady, a fine ensemble and a gorgeous set make it a pleasure to watch.
Agatha Christie’s 1954 comedy-thriller, her longest-running play after The Mousetrap, revolves around Clarissa Hailsham-Brown (Ava Oran), a diplomat’s wife living in a rented country house in Kent with her husband, Henry (Joshua Lang), and her young stepdaughter, Pippa (Eils Avalos). Her visitors include her guardian, Sir Rowland (Neil Thompson), a gruff neighbor, Hugo (Lloyd Pedersen), and a flirtatious young houseguest, Jeremy (Reed Michael Campbell). A hearty gardener (Carol Kaufman) comes with the rented house, and a busybody butler (Steve Young) hovers nearby.
Clarissa invents trouble to keep herself amused, and since she tells tall tales for fun, when she needs to be believed, nobody takes her word for it. Which is fine until real trouble turns up in her drawing room: a dead body, on the one evening her husband is bringing home a guest too important to name.
Christie is clearly laughing at her own expense here, sending up her own tropes, of which there are many: a secret panel, a hidden drawer and a butler nobody quite trusts – but none of it is meant to truly scare you. A corpse, in this house, is mostly a problem of etiquette.
Oran is a highlight of the evening. Her Clarissa is sharp, witty and never dizzy, and she stays a step ahead of every man in the house. She is also plainly devoted to Pippa, and their relationship offers an emotional core underneath all the scheming.
She is in good company. The whole cast is strong, and the humor is every bit as dry as the port that three gentlemen squabble over in the opening scene. That brand of English understatement doesn’t always survive a trip across the Atlantic, but it does here.
Another highlight is the set design by Chris Winfield, whose work deserves a bow of its own. Christie confines the action to a single drawing room and then asks that room to keep a great many secrets, and this one keeps them handsomely.
I’m a Christie fan, so consider me an easy mark, but despite my bias, I have a couple issues with the script. The first act runs long: between the estate and all its inhabitants, Christie introduces a lot, and the exposition drags before the story can catch fire. Also, the last act has one twist more than it needs. Still, I put the slow start down more to the writing than the staging: director Mareli Mitchel-Shields moves the rest of the play along briskly, especially during an enjoyable string of police interviews in the second act.
The Group Rep at the Lonny Chapman Theatre, 10900 Burbank Blvd., North Hollywood. Fri.-Sat., 8 pm; Sun., 2 pm; thru Nov. 1. www.thegrouprep.com Runtime: approximately two hours and 30 minutes with an intermission
