‘Hint’ Review: A Whodunit That Looks Like A Board Game


Based on the popular board game, the 1985 camping movie “Clue” has become a cult classic because of its all-star cast that makes delicious jokes every minute. A new stage productionAdapted by Sandy Rustin from a screenplay by Jonathan Lynn, with additional material by Hunter Foster and Eric Price, the film may not be as boob as ever, but the show has a very fun, very silly 1950s identity. Some contemporary parallels on the road to its great revelation.

While the Committee on Un-American Activities speaks to the drone on a television set, eager to please butler Wadsworth (an agile Mark Price) prepares for the arrival of his boss’ six guests, who are invited under undisclosed circumstances and each assigned nicknames. night.

There is a helpful psychologist, Professor Plum (Michael Kostroff); lively madam, Miss Scarlet (Sarah Hollis); and gay Republican Mr. Green (Alex Mandell), who hid the fact that he did not vote for Eisenhower in the last election. These three play against the production’s larger comics: the dorky Colonel Mustard (perfectly timing John Treacy Eagan); Ms. White (Donna English), multiple divorcee; and Mrs. Peacock (Kathy Fitzgerald, comic), the wife of a senator with a drinking problem, who dresses as an American Girl doll. (The costumes were made by Jen Caprio.)

They soon discover that their ties to Washington, ranging from the morally obscure to the criminal, have brought them to the wrong end of a blackmail scheme. After his host, Mr. Boddy (Graham Stevens), arrives, he blacklists McCarthyism to his concerns. The lights go out, everything—notably a candlestick, a wrench, a lead pipe, a pistol, a rope, and a dagger—claps through the night and Mr. Boddy dies, as the dwindling survivors struggle to make sense of it. that’s all.

“Is this about Red Scare?” Mr Green whispers. Released during the Reagan era, the film was a pointed satire of conservative hypocrisy. While the stage version begins with a strong stream of paranoia, which is read as both Covid-19 concerns and possibly reversibly paralyzing horror, the “great scary mansion” mostly leaves politics when the loud jokes begin. The co-ordinated nature of the plot is a sure-fire nonsense fiction, but given the state of US affairs, the production could have used a stronger political backbone.

Casey Hushion turns a steady eye toward possible laughs, and Lee Savage’s set depicts an appropriately stuffy mansion with hidden passageways and falling chandeliers. The finely tuned cast running around to convince a stray cop (Kolby Kindle) backed corpses are just having a good time is a welcome throwback to an era of physical comedy often usurped by sarcasm.

Wadsworth’s definitive statements – a clever take on the film’s notorious alternate endings played in different theaters – prove that what was dismissed as a marketing gimmick at the time is actually an early premise of today’s multiverse. As the survivors rush to blame each other for different possible scenarios, they reflect our increasingly selfish desire to think our perception is correct. Like the board game and life itself, the game only makes one come true – but thankfully it’s fun.

Clue
at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, NJ until February 20; paper mill.org. Working time: 1 hour 30 minutes.



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