No mystery about it, Drury Lane's 'Orient Express' is a winner
“Murder on the Orient Express” - ★ ★ ★
Seeing as how “Murder on the Orient Express” was published 88 years ago and has been adapted at least a half dozen times on film, TV and radio, the conclusion of Agatha Christie's famous whodunit probably isn't going to come as a surprise to many audience members at Drury Lane Theatre's revival of Ken Ludwig's 2017 adaptation.
Recognizing perhaps the challenge of sustaining suspense in a murder-mystery this well-known, Ludwig opts for humor, which director Jessica Fisch expresses with visual gags, both broad and subtle, that elicited guffaws Thursday from the Oakbrook Terrace theater's opening-night audience.
That's not to say Ludwig, who's best known for the farces “Lend Me a Tenor,” “Moon Over Buffalo” and his “Crazy for You” libretto, has transformed “Murder on the Orient Express” into some kind of romp. Not entirely.
Fisch deftly balances Ludwig's humor with Christie's gravity in what is essentially an examination of the fine line between justice and vengeance. The delicate balance Fisch establishes is reflected in the performances of her first-rate cast. Led by Larry Yando as Christie's famed detective Hercule Poirot, the cast includes Janet Ulrich Brooks (seemingly having the time of her life), Peggy Roeder, Sean Blake, Keith Kupferer and First Folio Theatre's Diana Coates, among others.
Returning to Drury Lane for the first time in nearly 30 years, Yando - one of Chicago theater's finest actors - brilliantly navigates comedy and pathos. Beneath his droll, deadpan demeanor, Yando's Poirot hints at self-doubt stemming from another earlier case, self-doubt that surfaces during the play's closing moments where the actor's perfectly calibrated performance reveals a man agonizing over following the law or following his emotions.
Set during the 1930s, the action begins in Istanbul, where Poirot, having solved his latest case, is on his way back to London via the Orient Express, a railroad line run by longtime friend Monsieur Bouc (Blake).
On board, Poirot encounters an array of characters: oft-married, boisterous Helen Hubbard (a very funny Brooks); aging Russian Princess Dragomiroff (the nicely imperial Roeder) and her devout, if somewhat jittery, traveling companion Greta (Leah Morrow); a Hungarian countess (Coates), who is also a physician; conductor Michel (Karmann Bajuyo); governess Mary Debenham (Sarah Lo); Scottish soldier Colonel Arbuthnot (Ryan Imhoff); and a young man named Hector MacQueen (Sam Boeck), who's browbeaten by his shady employer, a boorish American businessman named Samuel Ratchett (Kupferer).
Ratchett has been receiving threatening letters, so he tries to hire Poirot to uncover who's behind them. But Poirot declines. When Ratchett is found stabbed to death in his compartment, it's up to Poirot to identify the killer from among his fellow passengers, each of whom had a reason for wanting Ratchett dead.
The intrigue unfolds on designer Andrew Boyce's impressive set, an inspired design consisting of well-appointed, luxury train cars set on a revolving stage, which makes transitions in Fisch's fluidly staged production nearly seamless. Less ostentatious than the play's filmed adaptations, Jessica Pabst's color-coded costumes - purple for Roeder's princess, tan for Morrow's meek Greta, red for Brooks's assured, irrepressible Helen, white for Coates' idealized countess - are practical and appropriate for travel.
Speaking of cinematic conventions, film noir figures prominently in Drury Lane's production, which unfolds against Anthony Churchill's slick, stylish projections and is underscored by sound designers/composers Mikhail Fiskel and Jeffrey Levin, whose moody music serves as obvious, but not unwelcome, emotional cues.
Not all of Fisch's ideas work. The tableaus the characters strike during Poirot's second-act reveal felt overly precious and unnecessary, and some of the performances border on parody. But, overall, this revival's a winner, and there's no mystery about that.
Location: Drury Lane Theatre, 100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace, (630) 530-0111, drurylanetheatre.com
Showtimes: 1:30 p.m. Wednesday; 1:30 and 8 p.m. Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; 3 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 and 6 p.m. Sunday through Oct. 23
Tickets: $69-$84, dinner-theater packages available
Running time: About 2 hours, 20 minutes, including intermission
Parking: In the adjacent lot
Rating: For most audiences
COVID-19 precautions: Masks are optional