Mousetrap

“Three Blind Mice” is a quirky kid’s song with its gruesome lyrics and haunting melody. Which is why it’s a perfect tune to play a central theme in Agatha Christie’s murder mystery Mousetrap.The longest running play in theater history, Mousetrap, now being presented by Theatre El Dorado, is classic Christie, with its understated murders, intricate plot lines, well-placed red herrings and an assortment of English eccentrics.

It all takes place in the 1940s when a murderer is on the lam in the English countryside, a snowstorm has marooned the hotel guests at Monkswell Manor House, a threatening note indicates another murder is on the menu, and a 20-year-old tragedy is coming home to roost.

This drawing room thriller opens with the crackling of a radio broadcast warning residents of a crazed killer who’s just murdered a local woman. With the all-points bulletin in the background, the new hotel proprietors, Mollie and Giles Ralston (Patricia Block and Josh Porter), begin to welcome their lodgers, each one more peculiar than the next.

“All of our guests are either unpleasant or odd,” Mollie says to her husband about the accumulating strangers and soon-to-be suspects—the overly dramatic architect, the prim and proper matron, the Major, the brash young woman and the strange foreigner. When a police detective skies in to question the snowbound suspects, and another murder takes place soon after, the whodunit game begins.

As the plot thickens, the detective begins to ferret out the hidden pasts of the gathered guests. Seems as though everyone at Monkswell may have some connection to the dead women, and a role in the haunted childhood of two lonely children.

Through the clever script and earnest acting, this production of Mousetrap manages to keep the audience’s attention despite slow pacing, wandering accents and a freezing theater. Michael Coleman is notable as the flighty drama-lover Christopher Wren, and the rest of the cast looks like it’s having fun, despite the uneven performances.

The ’40s ambience is captured through the attractive set—complete with a fireplace, velvet curtains and vintage radio and a wonderful wardrobe gathered by costume coordinator Ruthie Marinara. Unfortunately, the ambience of the play’s cold, draughty hotel extends into the cavernous El Dorado County Fairground building that houses the theater. A few strategically place heaters give valiant performances, but lack the projection needed for true warmth.—