PARY PRODUCTION Company, a theater
group usually identified with the avant-garde, is spending the
summer with the distinctly old fashioned charms of a murder mystery
by Agatha Christie.
Gary Houston, Pary's artistic director,
believes that "Toward Zero" adapted from her book by
the authoress and Gerald Verner, has the same quality of "intellectual
tension" that one can find in radical avant-garde theater.
If that is sufficient justification
for staging the American premiere of a neatly crafted mystery
in the classic Christie manner, then so be it.
The play, being performed Thursdays
through Sundays in the Theater Building at 1225 W. Belmont Av.,
fits the familiar format in which a group of disparate characters
is gathered in an isolated English Home.
THE HOUSE is ruled by Lady Tressilian,
a crotchety old woman greatly upset because her handsome young
ward, Neville Strange, is spending the holiday there with his
present wife, Kay, a tempestuous brunette, and his former wife,
Audrey, a cool blond.
Also on hand are Thomas Royde, a
pipe-puffing, tongue-tied young man on leave from his duties
in a colonial rubber plantation; Ted Latimer, a gigolo fooling
around with Kay; Ted Latimer, a gigolo fooling around with Kay;
Mathew Treves, a tippling, absent-minded old Scot, and Mary Aldin,
Lady Tressilian's plain, slightly spooky secretary.
It takes a while for the mystery
to get moving, with plenty of warnings by the characters that
"Something queer is going on" or "There's something
behind it all"
At the end of the first act, however,
the victim's head has been bashed in, and in the second act,
with the arrival of an unflappable police superintendent and
a novice inspector, the sifting out and shifting of suspicion
among the house guests is under way.
THE PLAY'S END brings the usual ingenious
solution, followed by a final moment of terror and the lovers'
joyous embrace.
Houston and his players take the
leisurely action at a natural pace, neither camping it up nor
playing it down.
The production is fastidious and
handsome within Pary's small space. Peter Winter has designed
a seedily elegant interior for the country home; Patricia Hart's
many costumes for the 10 actors keep them in perfect character;
and Larry Hart's sound effects include such necessary elements
as the pinging of tennis balls in the morning and the crash of
a thunderstorm on the night of the murder.
Surprisingly, and happily, the cast
manages to convey the manners and mores in the old-line, upper-class
society that inhabits Christie mysteries.
NORMAN ENGSTROM, as Neville Strange,
nicely indicates the genteel smugness of a wealthy, well bred
Englishman, and Nan Wade, as his first wife, suggests the kind
of serene beauty that could drive men mad.
All of the other players go through
their moves gracefully, each fitting into the carefully composed
pattern that the mystery sets up.
In the case of Mary Ross, who portrays
the passionate Kay Strange, however, the play gets a bit more
than it had bargained for.
from the moment she storms into the
house in a fit of jealous rage, Ross gives the play a real character.
Her anger seems honest, her anguish natural in other words, an
actress.
"Towards Zero"
Pary Production Company presents the
American premiere of the play adapted from Agatha
Christie's book "Towards Zero" by the authoress
and Gerald Verner. Directed by Gary
Houston. Lighting by Kevin L. Rigdon. Costumes by Patricia
Hart. Sound by Larry Hart. at the Theater Building, 1225 W. Belmont,
Thursdays through Sundays, trough August.
The Cast
Thomas Royde................................David
W. Stettler
Kay Strange............................................Mary Ross
Mary Aldin............................................Hedda Lubin
Mathew Treves.....................................J. Neil Boyle
Nevile Strange...............................Norman Engstrom
Lady Tressilian.......................................Doris Gilbert
Audrey Strange..........................................Nan Wade
Ted Latimer.........................................James Thomas
Superintendent Battle.........................Alan Felgenhauer
Inspector Leach..........................................Ken
Crost
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