Resort To Murder At The Blyth Festival
Murder mystery plays like Resort To Murder are part of a grand theatrical tradition that dates back at least to Mary Roberts Reinhart’s creaky 1920 murder mystery, The Bat, and that includes such old chestnuts as Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap of 1952, which is still running in London.
Often hokey, frequently played for laughs, and with wildly improbable plots, the genre is a staple of summer stock theaters. While these exercises can approach the level of high art (think Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound), most of them dispense with intellectual pretensions for pure entertainment value.
Resort To Murder by Birgitte Solem, now enjoying it world premiere at the Blyth Festival, is a worthy addition to the list of the best of the genre.
Brett (Jamie Mac), who seems to be independently wealthy, and Viv (Fiona Mongillo), a successful self-help author whose “Ancient Breathing” has helped many, have inherited Brett’s family manse on an island somewhere in Huron County. The dream is to turn it into a resort.
Viv’s vision is a peaceful spa getaway but Brett want to have some fun.
As Resort To Murder opens on, yes, a dark and stormy night, he has gathered Viv and the staff together to beta test his idea for game to be played by guests. To this end he has converted his father’s brooding library/office (the atmospheric set is by Pat Flood) into an escape room, complete with a steel door that can only be unlocked with a secret code.
Gayle (Hallie Seline), the restaurant manager, Josh (Landon Doak) who operates the island’s dock and boats, and Silas (Geoffrey Armour ), the resort’s chef, and Viv have to unlock the code by solving a murder mystery.
Unfortunately, the murder Brett uses as inspiration is one that actually happened on the very island. Viv is horrified and as Resort To Murder progresses it becomes increasingly obvious that the “true crime” basis for Brett’s little game strikes far too close to home.
Solem’s Resort To Murder plot is a devilishly clever Rubik’s Cube of a play that provides a number of twists that continue long after you think the last surprise has been sprung on us.
Thanks to sprightly dialog and well-drawn characters there are plenty of laughs in Resort To Murder. But Solem has also built in some scary moments, which give the characters plenty of opportunity to employ the calming techniques of “Ancient Breathing,” which of course generates more laughter.
In this she is ably assisted by the direction of Randy Hughson, who I have long admired as an actor at Stratford and Blyth, where he has played the patriarch of the “black” Donnellys in The Donnellys: A Trilogy and a home-grown Ebenezer Scrooge in two outings of A Huron County Christmas Carol.
Hughson has seized on a number of opportunities to scare the bejeezus out of us. Resort To Murder also has one of the cleverest curtain calls you’re likely to see all season.
The cast, all of whom appear in this season’s The Farm Show: Then & Now, are uniformly excellent. I could single some of them out for their especially important contributions, but to do so might be giving too much away. So the rest is silence as I let you experience the fun for yourself.
Lights by Nic Vincent and especially the sound design by Adam Campbell are crucial to the success of the show and both are first rate. Costumes by Amanda Wong do their quiet job nicely as well.
While the Blyth Festival’s stock in trade is dramas and comedies that directly reflect the lived experiences of the community it serves, they sprinkle their repertoire with comedies that, while they have a local setting, could take place just about anywhere.
I remember fondly examples like Liars At A Funeral, Bed and Breakfast, and Cakewalk. Resort To Murder joins the list as one of Blyth’s most successful light summer entertainments.
Resort To Murder continues at the Blyth Festival through August 31, 2024. For more information and to purchase tickets visit the Blyth Festival website.
[image: Autumn Ducharme, courtesy Blyth Festival]
Footnote: Resort To Murder marks the 150th world premiere in the Blyth Festival’s 50 year history.
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