BWW Reviews: SPIDER'S WEB Snares York Little Theatre Audience

There's nothing like a cozy little domestic murder, and no one knew that so well as Agatha Christie. Nearly as prolific with her stage works as with her novels and short stories, Dame Agatha knew how to please a crowd: death, sex, and humor. WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION, one of her best known plays, was heavy on the death, lurid on the implied sex, and light on the humor; it's a heavy, dark piece of goods. SPIDER'S WEB, on the other hand, is the exact opposite; it's light on death, light on sex, and heavy on something close to downright comedy. Oh, death happens, all right, along with the expected mistaken killers and mistaken identities, just like in THE MOUSETRAP, but there's no brooding, no terror, and a great deal of befuddlement instead. If you like a cozy, domestic murder with some shocks and jolts, but nothing far too scary, if you'd like to have tea and gossip with Miss Marple at a country house while she knits and talks about sinister villagers, this is your murder mystery.

At York Little Theatre, director Marjorie Bicknell has brought the country home of Cobblestone Court to life in the studio theatre (which has been newly, and particularly comfortably, renovated). You can sit in a cozy chair (the new seating in the studio is possibly the most comfortable theatre seating in the area) and feel as if you're in the manor's drawing room with the other guests, watching your hostess, the adorably ditzy Clarissa (Lisa Gildea, no stranger to drawing room mystery productions), muddling through a weekend party while worrying about her stepdaughter, the precocious Pippa (Hannah Yorgy).

The guests include the invited, local justice of the peace Hugo Birch (James Robert Clark, a veteran of this particular show), Jeremy Warrender, the too-charming secretary of a wealthy philatelist, who is determined to woo his married hostess (YLT veteran Ryan Szwaja, hero of the theatre's last Christie production), and Clarissa's father figure and former guardian, Sir Roland Delahaye (Joel Persing, another YLT Christie veteran). They also include the uninvited: Oliver Costello (Charlie Heller), who's dropped in for unclear nefarious purposes. He's also the husband of Pippa's mother, and on bad terms with Clarissa and her husband Henry (David Kloser, another AND THEN THERE WERE NONE veteran).

With a mix like that, something's bound to go wrong, and it does. Death, not surprisingly, ensues, with intrepid local constabulary (Robert Haag and Rick Osborn) to solve it. But solving it isn't easy when you can't trust a word coming from the hyper-imaginative Clarissa's mouth. And then, there's still that problem with the antique desk in the drawing room. The one with the not-very-secret drawer full of non-valuable autographs.

Clarissa is admirably unbelievable, most so when she tells the truth, and Gildea brings the part the sincerity that's needed for Clarissa to be misunderstood. If that seems confusing, you've never seen SPIDER'S WEB. Gildea's right at home in the drawing room, trying to explain what she sees going on around her, and hoping to protect everyone she suspects. Ryan Szwaja makes a properly demonstrative and not-quite-smarmy Warrender, trying to charm Clarissa to distraction. But it's Persing as Sir Roland who walks off with the show - he's perfectly in control, a veritable miracle of stiff-upper-lip upper-crust unflappability, ready in any unexpected crisis. His competition for the title is Beth Spahr as Cobbblestone Court's gardener, Miss Peake, a woman who's both at one with the broccoli and with a fireman's carry of a body of almost any size. Peake is the truly comic role of the show, and Spahr gives Peake her best shot and some priceless timing... as well as some astounding broccoli manhandling. Don't even think about crossing her - either on her vegetable marrows or on her knowledge of where to hide almost anything.

SPIDER'S WEB is a Christie lark, and on the YLT studio theatre stage, it's a true drawing room murder mystery, feeling as if the audience is itself in Clarissa's drawing room during events. It's not a perfect show, but it's a clever one, and some of Christie's purest entertainment.

This production is also the unveiling of YLT's remodeled studio theatre, its large "black box." With new flooring, better seats, and flexible seating arrangements as well as greatly improved acoustics, it's one of the most versatile stages now in the area, and the seats are some of the best theatre seating in the area as well. Kudos to executive director Lyn Bergdoll and YLT for the new design.

SPIDER'S WEB is at York Little Theatre through October 26, just in time for a happy, scary but not spooky, Halloween. Watch out for sinister broccoli spears, however, and beware of Pippa's antique recipe book. Call 717-854-5715 or visit ylt.org for tickets and information.

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