By Dale King
It’s no secret that playwright Ken Ludwig has a fancy for farce. It shows up big time in such slapstick comedies as Lend Me a Tenor and Moon over Buffalo.
Two years ago, he wrote The Game’s Afoot, a comedy-mystery set in 1936 that mixes elements of Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with the run-and-door-slam humor of the film, Clue. It’s also a Christmas tale, which makes it perfect during this holiday season for the stage at Lake Worth Playhouse, where it is now playing.
Unlike Ludwig’s other farcical flights, The Game’s Afoot offers a main character based on a real person — William Gillette, a turn-of-the-20th century actor who portrayed Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes in more than 1,300 shows over some 30 years. In fact, it was Gillette who created the visual image of Holmes with the deerstalker hat and curved pipe.
As this play begins, Gillette (portrayed with over-the-top theatrical gusto by David Zide) and his “troupe” of actor/friends have just concluded a Holmes stage drama and are taking their curtain call bows when a gunshot rings out and Gillette falls to the floor, wounded in the arm.
Fast-forward two weeks and the play moves to Gillette Castle, the actor’s palatial Connecticut home. It’s a stunning recreation of the place where Gillette actually lived — and it exists today as a museum. For this show, the Lake Worth Playhouse stage becomes a vast, splendid expanse of luxurious dark-wooded walls festooned with armaments and shields bespeaking a man with Holmes on the mind.
Recovered from his wound, but still puzzled about who committed the dastardly deed, Gillette goes forward with an invitation to his stage cohorts to spend Christmas Eve with him – and maybe help him solve the crime. Up to the home come Felix and Madge (Jason Leadingham, Kari Budyk) along with newlyweds Simon and Aggie (Terry Wolfe, Ariana Lobo), who meet Gillette’s mother, Martha, played by Karen Whaley.
The wild card tonight is an undesired guest, despised theater critic and newspaper columnist Daria Chase (Indigo Rancourt), who apparently has skewered just about everyone in the place — and offers no excuses for doing it.
The audience notices early on how Gillette and his acting buddies love to speak in theatrical lines, particularly from Shakespeare. It’s revealed that the phrase, “The game’s afoot,” is from the Bard’s play, Henry V, but is closely associated with Sherlock Holmes.
With Daria comes bad news. One of the doormen at the Palace Theater has been murdered. What is the shocked cast to do? Hold a séance, of course.
Before too long, The Game’s Afoot is getting out of control, but with Zide at the helm and a lot of great actors beside him, this play is the perfect holiday gift to us from Ludwig. It premiered at the Cleveland Play House in November 2011 and won the 2012 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Play.
As Gillette, Zide waxes from crazy to calm in response to the action. The veteran actor with a Burt Lancaster profile joins stage buddy Leadingham to become a Martin and Lewis-style duo, with frantic looks and head tics when they hide things that must be hidden. Leadingham’s acting credentials are obvious, particularly to those who saw him as the title character in The Foreigner last season.
As the gushingly theatric Madge, Budyk is a superb exaggeration, a firecracker in a green velvet dress. She is a perfect match for Leadingham’s character.
Lobo and Wolfe are splendid in their roles. They are the king and queen of teasing, biting repartee that flows as smoothly as Christmas eggnog. But their innocence hides a dark secret.
Rancourt seems to enjoy the nastiness of Daria and plays it for all she’s worth. Whaley dons a gray wig and instantly becomes the hapless, absent-minded Mom, the perfect foil to her son’s “savvy” actor friends. And Trish Weaver’s excellent portrayal of Inspector Goring smacks of Joe Friday’s “just the facts” style.
Director Jodie Dixon-Mears — also the artistic director at the Playhouse — does a great job with cast logistics. Set designer Norma O’Hep de Jesus and assistant set painter Caitlin Callahan assembled Gillette Castle perfectly.
If you want some holiday cheer with a bag full of laughs, this is the show to see.
The Game’s Afoot is playing through Dec. 8 at the Lake Worth Playhouse, 713 Lake Ave., Lake Worth. Tickets are available by calling the box office at 561-586-6410.