Sleuth At The Shaw Festival
I believe I am on record as not liking plays such as Sleuth, the brain-twisting murder mystery by Anthony Shaffer, now enthralling audiences at the Shaw Festival’s resuscitated Court House Theatre.
Like Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Sleuth challenges you to figure out “whodunnit” before the playwright finally reveals just how far off the mark you were. Since I fancy myself of more than average intelligence, I find it galling that I inevitably fail to meet the challenge.
I have vague memories of seeing the original Sleuth when it made its way from London to Broadway in the early 70s. My reaction then was pretty much the same as as my reaction this time around: Oh, gimme a break!
Famed mystery writer Andrew Wyke (Patrick Galligan) has invited Milo Tindle (Sepehr Reybod) to his country place in Wiltshire. Wyke has cottoned on to the fact that Tindle is cannoodling with his wife and, since he would just as soon be quit of the marriage, has an intriguing proposition.
Since Tindle is somewhat impecunious and Wyke’s wife is used to high living, why shouldn’t Tindle, with Wyke’s willing assistance, break into the house, steal the wife’s priceless jewels, take them to a fence provided by the ever helpful writer, and wive it wealthily in Wiltshire?
This improbable set up –which involves a ludicrous clown costume no less – is just the start of a catalogue of wildly baroque plot twists that unfold relentlessly until the final curtain. I find this sort of thing intensely annoying.
Still the genre has its aficionados and if you are among that confraternity, I can pretty much guarantee that you will find this rendition of Sleuth vastly entertaining.
Under the preternaturally assured direction of Peter Fernandes, making his Shaw directing debut, Sleuth fairly crackles with energy from start to finish. (Fernandes is better known as a gifted comic actor, as his turns in Shaw’s One Man, Two Guvnors and Crow’s Master Plan will attest.)
Galligan, one of Shaw’s finest actors, is most impressive as Wyke. He delivers Shaffer’s veritable firehose of dialog, witty and dryly amusing in that quintessential British manner, at a breathtaking clip. It certainly helps keep the audience from pausing to examine the text too closely.
Reybod is a relative newcomer to Shaw, listed in the programme as a Christopher Newtown Intern. At first, I thought he was somewhat miscast as Tindle, but as the play developed his masterful performance disabused me of that silly notion. He emerges as one of Shaw’s most promising company members.
The remaining cast members, Philip Mayfield, Liam McNulty, and Stanley Ruston, as various members of the Wiltshire constabulary, do everything Shaffer requires of them and do it with great attention to detail.
The physical production is likewise exemplary, from the detailed set of Sim Suzer, to the atmospheric lighting of Mikael Kangas, to the costumes of Joyce Padua. The original music and sound design of John Gzowski puzzled me a bit. At the performance I saw the music seemed to fade in an out.
I would give a special shout out to whoever handled makeup, as well as to the stage crew who did yeoman’s service in cleaning up the mess left at the end of the first act, but the programme was silent on both scores.
Sleuth continues at the Shaw Festival through October 9, 2026. For more information and to purchase tickets visit the Shaw Festival website.
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