Put your powers of deduction to the test at upcoming productions at the Shaw Festival and the Blythe Festival.iStockPhoto / Getty Images
Looking for some mystery and suspense this theatre season? The Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake promises to keep you guessing with crowd-pleasing thrillers, while the Blyth Festival in Blyth, in Huron County, offers a lighthearted take on a classic murder mystery with people trapped together on an island. Truly, it was a dark and stormy night.
Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution (Apr. 6-Oct. 13), at the Shaw Festival, is a riveting courtroom drama that has us questioning whether the wealthy victim’s handsome, much-younger lover really is guilty of her brutal death.
Director Alistair Newton says while the play asks big questions about justice – who it’s ultimately for and who has access – it’s also a great match of Christie’s expertise in plotting, with exciting characters and a “quite radical construction” that works on many levels.
“Christie is a master of manipulating the expectation of the audience and then subverting it,” says Newton. “She wants the audience to think they’re two steps ahead of her so that she can then pull the rug out from underneath them in a really satisfying way.”
“Achieving that balance gives you an entertaining and thrilling ride, yet Christie has a deeper point to make with something more to chew on,” he says. “It’s the kind of play people will still be talking about and debating long after they walk out of the theatre.”
The Blyth Festival, celebrating its 50th season of presenting all-Canadian plays, promises to get audiences laughing with the world premiere of Resort to Murder (Jul. 24-Aug. 31), written by Toronto-based actor and playwright Birgitte Solem.
The setting is campy – a couple inherits an old, abandoned mansion on Lake Huron and their plans to turn it into a country resort go terribly wrong.
“I’ve always liked the amateur detective, someone out of their element, having to save the day,” says Solem. “There’s a balance of humour and horror in the show that catches people off guard. It’s not interactive, but I do like the idea of the audience gasping all together.”
I’ve always liked the amateur detective, someone out of their element, having to save the day.
— Birgitte Solem, actor, playwright
Solem’s acting experience influenced how she wrote the play; it was important that the characters are fully developed – which, she finds, is not always the case in the genre.
“Even the potential villains in my show are sympathetic and engaging people,” she says. “They have a backstory and a reason why they did what they did so you can be invested in them. The audience can kind of be on their side as well.”
Villainy looms large in Sherlock Holmes and The Mystery of the Human Heart (July 24-Oct. 13), at Shaw Festival. Based on characters by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, it’s a new play written by Reginald Candy featuring the legendary Sherlock Holmes, his trusted confidant Watson and Mrs. Hudson, the landlady of 221B Baker Street.
Director Craig Hall says that everyone loves good detective stories – and while often emulated, no writer has ever achieved the perfection of the Sherlock Holmes stories.
“We love to be on his shoulder and ride shotgun, like Watson does, through his adventures,” says Hall. “It’s about seeing whether he’s ever going to meet his match. We want to see him being in physical danger and having to rise up to the challenge. The more unique the villain, the more unique the adventure.”
The audience wants to see Holmes solve puzzles but also solve the puzzles themselves to try to match his intellect.
“Sherlock doesn’t do things in a straight-ahead standard fashion,” says Hall. “He’s an enigma and even those closest to him, like Watson, can be baffled by him. He’s also a flawed character who’s prone to addiction, jumping to conclusions and certain kinds of arrogance.
“Part of the appeal of this play is seeing him be aware of those flaws and struggle with them, as well as try to unravel the mystery of what makes us tick as humans.”
Although Hall consumes other literature, he says he’s always drawn back to mysteries, simply for the sense of escapism – and because he loves the genre.
“In this time, when a lot of our theatre is drawn by message, identity and politics – which is all great – I think the audience still wants escapism, pure entertainment, where they can be an active participant in what’s going on,” he says.
Then again, it may be that we’re attracted to the dark side and extremes of human nature because it’s inherently fascinating, as is the age-old dichotomy of good and evil.
Solem believes people go to the theatre to experience murder mysteries knowing there may be a bit of horror but that’s not the focus. Horror is a whole other genre.
“There’s this wonderful combination of fear and safety that creates a sense of thrill,” she says. “[Director] Alfred Hitchcock once said people love to be scared when they feel safe. They also like the idea of the villain being caught and brought to justice so that the world is set right just a little bit.”
Advertising feature produced by Globe Content Studio. The Globe’s editorial department was not involved.