Whodunit? Sadly for fans of Victorian literature, Charles Dickens died before he could tell us, leaving his solitary murder/detective novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood unresolved. Putting his pen down forever, Dickens left the title character's disappearance a mystery.
But literature's loss has proven drama's gain, as this month Hoof 'n' Horn performs composer-playwright Rupert Holmes' "musical whodunit" from the fractional tale Dickens left behind.
Drood is a murder mystery that uses the audience as detectives to search for clues as to how and why Edwin Drood suddenly disappeared. Three decisions change the play's finale with each performance: Who is the murderer; what is the true identity of a disguised character that bears a remarkably strong resemblance to Edwin Drood; which male and female characters should become lovers just for the hell of it? It's a game of Clue onstage, and we decide the players' fate.
This 1986 Tony Award-winning play for best musical is as amusing as Dickens is English class. Although the script makes for a detached story line and some under-developed characters get lost in the play's momentum, the players do a fine job piecing it together with excellent choreography and stage presence. Of course, their trained voices enunciated the perfect accent--each sounded remarkably British.
Before the play's official beginning, the entire cast of characters mingles and gossips with the audience. Drood opens in Victorian Britain, where Chairman William Cartwright-played by the energetic and witty John Haubenreich-jumps onstage and informs the audience of the comedy troupe's plans to perform Drood, initiating the play within a play. He instructs the audience to participate, and "be as vulgar and uncivilized as possible."
And so the games begin.
The audience rises from their seats to repeat clever one-liners, sporadically echoing catch phrases such as "Droooooooood-duh" each time the chairman stomps his cane and, of course, loudly votes for the villain of choice in the end. Think: less cult and costumes than Rocky Horror Picture Show but just as much spectator involvement.
Enacting the regrettably unoriginal play-within-a-play plot idea, the actors, all contagiously enthusiastic, manage to make it work. Among a talented cast there is Princess Puffer, the "purveyor of opium" played by swear-she-wasn't-a-freshman Bridget Bailey; the perfectly-cast evil choirmaster John Jasper (Jacob Foster); wide-eyed virginal heroine Rosa Budd (Sara Beth Myers); and Britain's premiere male impersonator Miss Alice Nutting (Maggie Chambers), who also delivers the role of title character Edwin Drood. Bill Hoskyn's paramount portrayal of conniving Reverend Crisparkle has the audience laughing out loud. There were more red herrings in the mystery than in my bag of Swedish Fish, but the cast cleverly delivers such clues with a smile.
A few scenes seemed extraneous and uninteresting, but particular ones stick out as absolutely tremendous. Cartwright and Jasper perform their difficult song and dance number "Both Sides of the Coin" so exactly that one cannot help but notice its striking resemblance to the classic humor of Tweedledee and Tweedledumb.
The caliber of Princess Puffer's "The Wages of Sin" opened my eyes to the limitless talent on stage before me. Meanwhile, the pit orchestra-playing tunes melancholy, foreboding and sanguine-fills the stage with harmonious melodies. All must agree Hoof 'n' Horn's The Mystery of Edwin Drood is well executed onstage; now it's your job to choose how he's executed behind the curtain.
Drood runs through Oct. 27 in the Bryan Center's Sheafer Theater. To solve this whodunit for yourself, see the calendar at right for showtimes and ticket prices.
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