Mind Over Murder! @ Pegasus Theatre
—Sam Lisman
What do you get when you combine a closed bridge, a mis-scheduled audition, a broken-down car, and the reading of a magician’s will one year to the minute after his death on stage? Why, the latest Harry Hunsacker comedy/mystery, of course.
Pegasus Theatre’s Mind Over Murder!, written by Kurt Kleinmann and directed by Raymond Banda, is performed at the Bath House Cultural Center as a radio play—essentially a staged reading (the actors have their scripts) with some costuming and radio-era sound effects. Of the roughly two dozen installments in the ongoing Hunsacker adventures, this entry falls somewhere in the last third of the series, in late 1939. So far, the earliest Hunsacker tale took place in 1932, while the latest, this winter’s The Dimension of Death!, was set in 1955. Fortunately, the latest plays are spaced well apart in time—”gaps” to allow for the squeezing in of many more adventures.
Having only seen the two most recent plays, I can’t state patterns with certainty, but it appears that certain motifs seem consistent: Hunsacker (Danny Gallagher), an earnest, well-meaning goof, is always in over his head; Detective Foster (Jared Culpepper), the gruff, plain-clothes policeman straight out of central casting, can’t stand Hunsacker; and Nigel Grouse (Jonah Munroe), Hunsacker’s urbane friend, companion, and assistant (for which he’s paid to be at least one of those three), is the brains of the operation. The actors playing the roles may have changed, but the characters haven’t.
Our trio stumble into the reading of the will of Marko the Magnificent (Joseph Figueiras), who was fatally shot by his assistant, Tracy (Kellie Monahan-McElroy) in front of a packed house when the old catch-a-bullet-in-the-mouth trick failed spectacularly. Marko believed he’d be able to communicate from the great beyond, most easily on the anniversary of his death, and so a group has assembled at his mansion to learn the disposition of his sizable fortune.
Present are his widow, Rose (Isabelle Culpepper), his aforementioned assistant, Tracy, his manager, Douglas Bailey (Frankie Whitaker), his bookie, Spuds Gillespie (Will Galey), his Doctor, Doc Hopper (Ben Schroth), Doc’s much younger girlfriend, the journalist Nora Grey (Jennifer Nachazel), and the mansion’s butler, Otis Digby (Gordon Fox), and maid, Blanche Merkle (Johanna Nchekwube). In a hat tip to the plot of so many cartoons, they must all spend the night together in the mansion, or lose their inheritance.
After the millions have been divided, though, Marko’s spirit possesses one of the group, announcing that his death was no accident, but a (wait for it)…MURDER! And though he’s interrupted before he can reveal the culprit, we know what he’s about to say—that the murderer is in the room! And of course, everybody has a motive (or two), and everyone had a chance to tamper with the not-so-death-defying bullet trick.
To make the radio concept work, John Harvey plays The Announcer (he’s also the stage manager and is credited for adapting the script for radio), describing the action that isn’t performed, adding the radio sound effects, and throwing in some rather odd commercials (including an appropriately timed food advertisement as we head into Passover—because for most of us, that fish is only in season for one week a year).
The acting relies primarily on exaggerated voices (it’s radio, after all). Tracy’s had a high-pitched, nasally sound; Spuds’ was a cross between Luca Brasi and (I’m convinced) Charles Barkley; and Doc affected a wheeze.
Although it lacks the flare of the company’s Living Black & White productions (along with the actual acting of the scenes), I found Mind Over Murder! to be a much better script than its immediate predecessor; and not just because (spoiler alert) there were no pirates, cartoonish or otherwise, in this show. Simply put, it had a stronger plot with fewer loose threads at the end. (Note: fewer, not none.) More of the jokes landed, and I found myself enjoying the fun. It’s not a transcendent theater experience, of course, but it’s not trying to be. It’s a good time, and a very pleasant diversion.
WHEN: Through March 25
WHERE: The Bath House Cultural Center, 521 E. Lawther Drive, Dallas, TX 75218
WEB: pegasustheatre.org
