The most tantalizing Agatha Christie mystery is this: What went on during the writer’s 11-day disappearance in 1926, when more than 1,000 police officers and countless volunteers scoured the English countryside looking for her? Theories abound, but none have been proven and she never said.
Wisconsin playwright Heidi Armbruster has turned this biographical gap into a comedy-mystery, “Mrs. Christie,” which Milwaukee Repertory Theater opened April 17 (after a smoothly handled 20-plus minute tornado warning delay).
Like Armbruster’s comedy “Murder Girl,” which Milwaukee Chamber Theatre staged earlier this season, “Mrs. Christie” follows the mystery form while affectionately lampooning it. Armbruster braids together two stories a century apart. In 1926, Agatha (Alex Keiper) is increasingly distraught about the affair her husband, Archie (Matt Bowdren), is having out in the open. In our own time period, American at loose ends Lucy (Zoë Sophia Garcia) is at a fan event at the Christie house when she grabs pages from a secret journal that appear to be about the writer’s mysterious disappearance.
Both unhappy women acquire a muse-sidekick in their adventures. And wouldn’t you know it, they’re Christie’s two most famous sleuths. William Sturdivant, excellent in the Rep’s recent “The Lehman Trilogy,” is mustachioed detective Hercule Poirot, who shows up to bring Agatha back to the world. The little old lady who attaches herself to Lucy is none other than Miss Jane Marple (Dale Hodges), the shrewd spinster who solved so many Christie cozies.
Sturdivant and Hodges are two leading reasons to see this show, giving us chances to wink at the conventions of Christie’s storytelling. (Pro tip: Never refer to Poirot, fiction’s most famous Belgian, as French.) And credit to Armbruster: It has never occurred to me to think of Poirot as a spiritual guide and life coach, the role the playwright assigns him here.
Director Joanie Schultz, scenic designer Se Hyun Oh and their colleagues have put a big, fancy show on stage with elaborate sets reflecting the 1926 period. Fight choreographer and intimacy coordinator Erin Carr had necessary work to do on both fronts, especially a surprising and satisfying physical confrontation.
This production grew in power for me as it went on. Armbruster brings the two women’s stories together in a cheekily magical way that also makes “Mrs. Christie” a story about writing and storytelling.
If you go
Milwaukee Repertory Theater performs “Mrs. Christie” through May 10 at the Checota Powerhouse Theater, 108 E. Wells St. Visit milwaukeerep.com or call 414-224-9490. Milwaukee Rep recommends this production for people age 12 and older.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: ‘Mrs. Christie’ offers comic solution to famed writer’s disappearance
Reporting by Jim Higgins, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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