Review: CLUE: A NEW COMEDY brings full out fun to Emerson Colonial Theatre

Since first introduced in the 1940s, the murder mystery board game Clue has spawned everything from a film and a television series to spin-off games and more than one stage adaptation – including the uproariously funny “Clue: A New Comedy,” currently being presented by Broadway in Boston at the Emerson Colonial Theatre through May 5.

In the play, not to be confused with the 1997 musical, six high-brow individuals, each with a lot at stake, gather for a posh and private dinner party on an ominously stormy night in 1954, and before long become enmeshed in a game of game of cat and mouse.

Written by Sandy Rustin – whose bedroom farce “The Cottage” enlivened Broadway last summer – with additional material by Hunter Foster and Eric Price, the comedy is based on Jonathan Lynn’s screenplay for the 1985 film. One of the most-produced plays of 2022–2023, it broke box office records with its regional premieres and has been produced locally by the Greater Boston Stage Company and the Cape Playhouse.

The essential elements of farce, including humorous hijinks and door slamming aplenty, are deliciously served up under the clever, quick-paced direction of Casey Fushion, with able assists from fight director Robert Westley and a resplendently perfect 11-member cast, making for a laugh-inducing mystery which finds the dinner-party host dead and his butler, Wadsworth, and guests – Miss Scarlet, Professor Plum, Mrs. White, Mr. Green, Mrs. Peacock, and Colonel Mustard – high on the list of suspects and all scrambling to identify the killer as the body count grows.

Stand-outs in the stellar cast include Mark Price as the fleet-footed Wadsworth, Michelle Elaine as the comely enchantress Miss Scarlet, John Shartzer as dashing double agent Mr. Green, John Treacy Egan as the dim-witted Colonel Mustard, Joanna Glushak as the aged and pickle-pussed Mrs. Peacock, and, in the smaller roles of the cook and a singing telegram deliverer, the wonderful Mariah Burks.

The wood-paneled walls and sometimes in-on-the-action chandeliers of Boddy Manor, a remote New England estate, are splendidly executed by scenic designer Lee Savage, while costume designer Jen Caprio telegraphs the characters to great effect – Miss Scarlet in vivid red, Colonel Mustard in what else but a brownish-yellow military uniform, Mrs. Peacock with a bird’s feather atop her head, and Professor Plum in the requisite timeworn tweed.

Farce is not to everyone’s taste but when it is done as well, as it is in this production, it’s a meal not to be missed.

Photo caption: Company of the North American tour of “Clue.” Photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade.

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