Live and in person at the Blyth Festival, Blyth, Ont. Playing until Aug. 31, at the Memorial Hall.
Written by Birgitte Solem
Directed by Randy Hughson
Set by Pat Flood
Costumes by Amanda Wong
Lighting by Nic Vincent
Sound by Adam Campbell
Cast: Geoffrey Armour
Landon Doak
Jamie Mac
Fiona Mongillo
Hallie Seline
Playwright Birgitte Solem knows about murder mysteries. For one thing for 10 years she wrote site-specific dinner theatre mysteries for Mysteriously Yours in Toronto. That’s quite a feat. Resort to Murder is not only a delicious play on words, it’s also a rip-roaring murder mystery with more twists and turns than a New York pretzel.
Brett (Jamie Mac) owns the family mansion with his wife Viv (Fiona Mongillo) and wants to make it into a tourist destination, a kind of place for solving a murder/mystery/escape room thingy.
Brett plans to try out his scheme first on Viv and some of the staff: Silas the chef (Geoffrey Armour), Josh, the man who drives the boat for the enterprise and Gayle (Hallie Seline) the restaurant manager. The folks have to solve a mystery murder and escape the escape room which is locked tight by a keypad number only Brett knows the code and he has somehow fallen out the window of the safe room to the rocks below. Or was he pushed? They are on an island. It’s a wild stormy night. Lots of blackouts. Strange sounds and apparitions.
Twenty-five years before there was indeed a real mystery when a couple who worked for Brett’s father and the couple’s son, went out in a boat at night and disappeared. The son was in fact a boyhood friend of Brett’s and Brett wants the assembled people to try and solve the disappearance/mystery from years before.
There are lots of twists and turns in the story. Birgitte Solem has a wonderfully tricky imagination and a way with a funny phrase. You will be laughing at the same time as you tighten your butt-cheeks in the mounting tension of the situations.
Director Randy Hughson has the same mischievous imagination as Birgitte Solem. One finds that one is looking carefully for clues. Is one of the people there a murderer? Did someone push Brett out the window and onto the rocks below? Brett moved a book from the desk to a bookshelf for no reason. Is that a clue? Other strange things happen. Our anticipation is ramped up. Nic Vincent’s lighting gets more and more spooky. Adam Campbell’s sound design adds to the tension in the room. Pat Flood’s detailed set design of the ‘escape room’ is smart, clue filled and provocative. Amanda Wong’s costumes are casual and appropriate.
The cast is first rate. Jamie Mac plays Brett as a man determined to see his idea through to fruition. He is a joker but serious. He humours his wife Viv played with style by Fiona Mongillo. Viv is serious, skeptical and impatient with Brett’s ideas. Fiona Mongillo plays her very straight, and is therefore compelling. As Silas, the finicky chef, Geoffrey Armour thinks only of his edible creations. He is quite impassioned about them. Landon Doak is Josh, the man who drives the boat. He is playful and yearning. He is sweet on Gayle, the restaurant manager (Hallie Seline). They knew each other in high school and he liked her then. Gayle as played by Hallie Seline, is impatient with Josh. She’s not interested in him. She seems more irritated because of her job than anything else. One feels for Josh and wonders as Gayle’s short temper. The play has various characters, all of whom could be up to no good. We watch all of them.
Resort to Murder it a crackling good “murder-mystery”, and trying to solve whether there in fact was a murder at all is one of its many surprises. And charms.
The Blyth Festival presents:
Runs until Aug. 31, 2024.
Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes, approx. (1 intermission)