Stage: Murder Is a Game

This show is a killer

By Jessica Kruse

A thunderstorm, a washed-out bridge, a spooky, cobweb-covered house, a secret passage and, oh yeah--three murders in one night. No, it's not a rerun of "Scooby-Doo." It's Theatre in the Valley's latest production, Murder Is a Game, written by Fred Carmichael.

The play is funny, if a little predictable in parts. Toby and Sloan Bigelow (played by Sergio Garcia and Jackie Shick respectively) are a successful husband-and-wife mystery novel-writing team with a double case of writer's block. Attempting to inspire them, publisher Lois Dunston (Susan Bindhamer) sends the pair to a creepy, castoff house for the weekend. She hires some actors to join the couple, and sets up a mock murder mystery for them to solve. Things go slightly awry and not long after the murder is solved, real-life murders takes place in the house, and Toby and Sloan are forced to play a quick game of "whodunit" with their actors-turned-guests.

The story alone is comical and suspenseful enough to keep the audience's interest, but the majority of the cast lacks any noteworthy presence. It's not that the lines themselves aren't funny or clever; it's that some of the actors struggle to deliver them convincingly enough to get a laugh from the audience. And then sometimes the actors seem so eager to deliver the lines that they talk over the other actors, which just leads to confusion.

Things pick up a bit when the hired actors show up. June Ripley (Aarika Rhodes) is cute and has a helluva pair of lungs, and Michele Cusac should be commended for her believable performance as Cora Leech. Actress Rachel Wright is terrific as the clueless but sexy adult movie star, B.B. Mink. Wright's performance is funny, lively and convincing. It's a shame her character doesn't appear earlier, as she would have brought some extra life to the show.

While the show has its problems, the cast of Murder Is a Game puts on a fun, family-friendly, energetic performance that's guaranteed to get a laugh or two out of anyone.