Get a “Clue”! Board game lives (and kills) at the Curran
Col. Mustard in the Lounge with the candlestick! Miss Scarlett in the Conservatory with the lead pipe! The company of the North American tour of Clue: Live on Stage. Photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade
If Barbie can be a hit movie, why shouldn’t the classic board game Clue be a sparkling whodunnit stage comedy?
The better question, really, is why they didn’t think of turning Clue into a slapstick farce before trying to slap it onto a movie screen? The live physicality of the theater is a much better showcase for the zany shenanigans of murderers and suspects wielding household items/murder weapons than the big screen. The 1985 movie version of Clue has a stellar cast (Madeline Kahn! Lesley Ann Warren! Tim Curry! Eileen Brennan!) but failed to catch fire at the box office, even with the gimmick of three different endings offered to movie theaters.
Candlestick, pistol, wrench, rope, lead pipe and a knife. Oh, my! The weapons – and the laughs – are out to do some damage in Clue: Live on Stage at the Curran Theatre. Photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade
But think about it: you’ve got a classic Agatha Christie-type set-up with a spooky mansion on a dark and stormy night. Guests gather under mysterious circumstances, and before you you can say “Mrs. Peacock in the Billiard Room with the Wrench!” bodies start piling up. This is a story built for the theater, and when you add in all the goofy comedy, a zippy farce is exactly what the doctor, or at the very least, Professor Plum, ordered.
Clue: Live on Stage, now at the Curran Theatre as part of the BroadwaySF season (and then on to San Jose), is a highlight of the Halloween theater season (if there is such a thing). It’s only 90 minutes, showcases a cracking cast of comedians and features the best bits from the screenplay (by Jonathan Lynn).
This version of the show has multiple layers of writers, beginning with Lynn. For the 2017 Bucks County Playhouse premiere, the screenplay featured additional material by Hunter Foster and Eric Price, and now for this national tour, the whole thing has been given a new polish by Sandy Rustin.
Clue, the never-bored game, has been adapted for the stage. Photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade
Set in 1954 during the ugly reign of McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Commission, this silly story involves a bunch of Washington, D.C. grifters (politicians, military personnel, greedy wives, etc.) gathered in the mansion of Mr. Boddy. Tales of blackmail, requests to commit murder and then actual murders spill forth before anyone can even get a decent cocktail.
Director Casey Hushion paces the madcap mayhem splendidly, but it’s really the outsize performances by the cast that loads the bullets into this pistol. Who knew that bumbling, unassuming Mr. Green could dominate the game board, but that’s what happens with the extraordinary clowning of John Shartzer. His slo-mo version of a falling chandelier nearly crushing him is very nearly worth the price of admission alone.
But then there’s Jeff Skowron as Wadsworth the butler, whose re-cap of the entire show is a masterclass in over-the-top buffoonery.
As good as Shartzer and Skowron are, I must admit that my laughs came most consistently from John Treacy Egan as Colonel Mustard, the dimmest bulb in the military’s supply closet. Egan actually underplays a lot of his punchlines, which makes them even funnier.
All the endings from the movie are represented here, with one of them turning out to be the “ultimate” solution. It’s all very satisfying in the silliest and most ridiculous of ways, but here’s the ultimate reveal: Clue: Live on Stage killed me. In the Curran. With a giant funny bone.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Clue: Live on Stage continues through Oct. 27 as part of the BroadwaySF season at the Curran Theatre, 445 Geary St., San Francisco. The show moves to the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, 255 S. Almaden Blvd., San Jose from Oct 29-Nov. 3. Running time is 90 minutes (no intermission). Tickets are $50-$130 in San Francisco; $52-$263 in San Jose. To purchase tickets for the San Francisco engagement, visit broadwaysf.com. To purchase tickets for the San Jose engagement, visit broadwaysanjose.com.
