No matter how many times you’ve seen Pegasus Theatre’s trademark visual style, when the first actor walks on stage you have to wonder if your eyes are deceiving you. The look, dubbed Living Black and White, is that singular.
It’s achieved with makeup by Leslie Patrick, costumes by Margaret Monostory Crowley and scenic design by David Sanders that mimic pre-color detective films of the 1940s, specifically the Sherlock Holmes movies starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce.
Despite a new location for the 40-year-old company’s shows, the Addison Performing Arts Centre, the Pegasus aesthetic remains intact for MacMurder!, the 23rd installment in the series written by artistic director Kurt Kleinmann. It again features the bumbling Harry Hunsacker (Scott Nixon) solving a murder mystery in spite of himself.
The fare is lighthearted comedy, replete with U.K. accents so thick sometimes you can’t understand what the characters are saying. The main performance space at the Addison PAC is tall, perfect for creating a grandly rustic setting, in this case Scotland’s fictional Graymoor Castle, circa 1937.
When Hunsacker arrives with his “paid-by-the-hour” assistant Nigel Grouse (Ben Bryant), the real brains of the operation (and ladies’ man), some 430 people are already dead, including the castle owner and his long line of heirs.
In a funny twist that raises the stakes for Hunsacker, he happens to be related to the original victim and is next in line to inherit the castle. That puts him next to be killed, too, so the scramble to find the perpetrator is on. Could it be his archnemesis Inspector MacFoster (the wiry, kilt-wearing Jack Lawrence Geary)?
Carefully directed by Becki McDonald, MacMurder! could use sharper pacing and a few more jokes. The ones that land best are running gags about the characters’ natures and area-specific dishes like salmon mousse and pickled haggis. The show, seen at last Sunday’s matinee, drew chuckles if not guffaws.
A lot of the humor is carried by the castle’s female staff, including the cook played by the appropriately named Kellie Monahan-McElroy. Could she be the mass murderer, poisoning her guests via their stomachs? It doesn’t matter when the goal is a pleasant afternoon or evening of goofy comedy nostalgically evoking another time, place and look.
Details
Through Jan. 4 at 15650 Addison Road, Addison. $29-$85. pegasustheatre.org.
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