‘Death Express!’ @ Pegasus Theatre
—Martha Heimberg
Harry Hunsacker—and the delightfully bizarre characters drawn to the “world famous detective and aspiring actor”—are just plain addictive.
To date, playwright and Pegasus Theatre artistic director Kurt Kleinmann has written 20 murder mysteries featuring Harry, all produced in the company’s “Living Black & White” style—wherein lighting, sets, costumes, makeup and sound mimic the look and dramatic atmosphere of films from the 1930s and ‘40s.
It works. Bigtime.
This season’s Harry romp (at the Eisemann Center through January 21) is Death Express!, originally directed by Susan Sargeant in 2010, and by Michael Serrecchia for this happily antic version. Before the second preview performance, Pegasus executive director Barbara Weinberger asked a packed house, including many families, if they’d seen a Harry show before. When practically all hands went up, she said: “I guess the rest of you are from out of town.”
It’s easy to see the attraction. Who can resist the bumbling Harry, played by Scott Nixon with the easy confidence of a man so slow on the draw he never knows who’s on first? (A mixed metaphor for mixed-up Harry.) We’re all aboard the Trans-Continental Express, a non-stop train speeding across the continent with a load of comic characters you’ll get a kick out of—at least twice.
Harry’s “paid by-the-hour assistant” Nigel Grouse (the ever-elegant Ben Bryant) and the real cop, Detective Lt. Foster (fretful, grumpy Chad Cline), are celebrating Nigel’s birthday. But we know these guys can’t get out the door, never mind climb into a large moving vehicle, without falling over a dead body or two…or three. Before Harry can say, “I haven’t always been a dick,” he opens the door of a private compartment and a woman’s corpse tumbles into the aisle.
Harry rushes to the club car and breaks the news to his fellow travelers. “Just because we found a murdered woman doesn’t mean there’s any foul play afoot,” he assures them. Meanwhile, Nigel explores the baggage room, and the famous murder-mystery writer Iris Henderson (pert, brainy Madison Murrah) is all ears and up to her eyebrows in theories.
Everyone is a suspect; it’s the iron rule in all such contained crimes. Could the innocent-seeming Idaho potato farmer couple kill someone? Myrtle Ann (Liv Murphy), a backwoods gal with a baby in her belly, and husband Josephus (Michael Speck), a down-home dude so friendly he gives everybody a tater, would surely never do such a thing.
Who knows about the Italian actress Valentina Benet (a relentlessly vamping Alex Moore), svelting all over the place and flirting with Nigel? And what about those Brit types, P.B. Caldicott (Jake Shanahan) and B.G. Charters (Leslie Patrick), babbling about Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig and downing gin from their personal flasks? Who do they think they’re fooling? And don’t forget The Conductor (Mario Aguirre IV). He’s so nice and polite he’s gotta be hiding something.
Set Designer Robert H. Winn fills the thrust stage at the Eisemann with a muti-level, Art Deco-style express train with both a baggage and a busy bar car. Elijah Reed’s lighting design wonderfully reflects the shadows going by as actors rock and sway on the moving train. He’s even designed a funny, dizzying video to reflect Lt. Foster’s vertigo when he moves between cars.
Michael A. Robinson’s costumes are every shade of gray and white, plus some scrumptious textures. (My favorite was the writer’s perky houndstooth outfit.) Makeup director Leslie Patrick does a great job with the process. One actor said it takes 90 minutes to put it on and 45 to take it off—poor darlings! Still, I’m glad they do the work. It’s truly startling to see the stark whiteness of faces, wrinkles and shadings included, when the actors come out after the show to greet guests and take photos.
The broad style and clever techniques of the show may be familiar, but like a good tightrope act, it’s fun and exciting to see it happen every time.
WHEN: December 29, 2023-January 21, 2024
WHERE: Charles W. Eisemann Center, 2351 Performance Drive, Richardson TX
WEB: pegasustheatre.org
