'The Real Inspector Hound' Is Rip-Roaring Good Time
LENOX, Mass.
This whodunnit starts out as murder mystery and ends up being a farce. Or at least that is the verdict rendered by the two front-row critics, Birdboot and Moon, who interrupt the play constantly to make such comments. Without them it might have just been a typical thriller.Nobody seems to notice that throughout most of the evening a dead body lies downstage, hardly noticed by the players.
The cast is great, the laughs almost nonstop, and the acting completely ignores the Goldilocks problem. The actors don't have to decide if they are giving it too little juice or too much, they just go over the top, stomping on caution, just push the accelerator to floor. They take this 1961-2 Tom Stoppard play on a Pythonesque ride into zaniness that sent the opening-night audience into non-stop gales of laughter.
This fall spot on the Shakespeare & Company schedule is often where we find Sherlock Holmes and other mystery plays, but in recent years Berkshire audiences have been treated to spoofs on that venerable theatrical form. Last year, Tony Simotes staged the delightful "Hound of the Baskervilles," which included Jonathan Croy in the cast and who directs this year. These guys seem to have a direct line to Mel Brooks and the Three Stooges. There is nothing genteel about this play or its humor, it uses pratfalls and slapstick to insure the audience has a good time.When I first saw this play a couple of decades ago at the old Next Move Theatre in Boston, it was one act and barely lasted an hour. In the expanded version used at the Bernstein Theatre, it had grown to two acts and two hours.
The second act is much like the first act, only from a completely different angle, sort of a play within a play.
Much of the material added was the physical comedy, a specialty that the players of Shakespeare & Company have mastered to perfection. Of course, it does not appeal to everyone, and perhaps that is why the two critics who start off as part of the audience and in the second act become embroiled in the stage action are such an integral part of the show. They have fun with critics, too. At the very outset, Birdboot the Critic (Josh Aaron McCabe) suggests to his fellow critic, Moon (Enrico Spada) that: "Me and the lads have had a meeting in the bar and decided it's first-class family entertainment but if it goes on beyond half-past 10, it's self-indulgent — pass it on ..."
Stoppard denies that the play is a spoof of critics — even though one is murdered before the evening is over — but it surely portrays them as neurotic, self-indulgent individuals.
What it is really about is spoofing the murder-mystery form, especially as ritualized by writers like Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. In fact, the model for "The Real Inspector Hound" is "The Mousetrap," which has been running in London since 1952. The play is known for its twist ending, which at the end of every performance the audience is asked not to reveal. Stoppard parodies many elements of "The Mousetrap," including the surprise ending. And in recent months, that ending has become available on Wikipedia, much to the consternation of theater purists.
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As the housekeeper, Mrs. Drudge, Meg O'Connor constantly takes center stage, and for good reason. Her role includes turning on the radio and answering the phone, both devices used to explain things to the audience. For example the phone rings and she answers: "Hello, the drawing room of Lady Muldoon's country residence one morning in early spring ..."
Dana Harrison plays Lady Cynthia Muldoon as flirtatious to the edges of nymphomania as she rolls around on the floor with Simon Gascoyne (David Joseph) becoming entwined with the corpse at one point. Scott Renzoni might be the only actor to downplay his part as the wheelchairbound Maj. Magnus Muldoon. Making an indelible impression during his few minutes onstage, Wolfe Coleman as Inspector Hound is appropriately inept, and hilarious. Higgs, yet another theater critic about whom not much can be revealed without spoiling the plot, is Max Bochs.
In a comedy like this, casting is critical, since the work of the ensemble is essential to the timing of the comedy. You see the creativity of each cast member throughout the production as each actor has polished their own bits of business to amplify their characters. Though the action threatened to engulf the audience as a whole, director Jonathan Croy kept the madhouse from spilling too far over the stage.
In the intimate confines of the Bernstein Theatre playing space, the simple set by Patrick Brennan looked a lot fancier than most. But it is Brennan's mastery of the art of illusion. The costumes as designed by Givane Lohbauer are wonderful, and to these eyes at least, help establish the characters very clearly.
There are references in this play to Shakespeare, Pirandello, Beckett, Kafka, Satre and St. Paul. But they are just intellectual cover for the insanity on stage.
"The Real Inspector Hound" is truly an evening of comic anarchy. With controlled madness and mayhem, it captures the audience and makes us think we are ahead of the plot. Until a new twist comes along. This delightful treat runs until Nov. 7. For all the literary illusions and allusions, there isn't a better evening of entertainment you can have.
Larry Murray is a contributor to iBerkshires.com and offers reviews and arts news from around the region at Berkshire On Stage.
