STAGE REVIEW : Some Things in ‘The Spider’s Web’ Remain a Mystery : Westminster Community Theatre’s production of the Agatha Christie play suffers from inattention to precision and detail.

“The Spider’s Web,” Agatha Christie’s mystery now running at the Westminster Community Theatre, has a plot as deliriously intricate as the title suggests. The mystery is more comic than murderous as a quiet country household of eccentric Brits finds itself entangled in a cover-up scheme that involves hidden alcoves, priceless antiques, divorce, drugs, flirtations and secret meetings among government officials.

The Pied Piper of this merry dance is one Clarissa Halisham-Brown, the second wife of a mature and solid civil servant. She’s a quick-witted young thing, given to fantasy and harmless exaggeration, but when some real excitement presents itself in the form of a corpse, Clarissa cooks up intrigue like a master chef attacking a rack of lamb.

Director Edward J. Steneck’s production keeps the story line clear, although precision and detail are neglected. Accents cover the globe. There are plastic wineglasses and heat-sensitive messages that bear the traces of previous decoding. And there isn’t a clue about what era we’re visiting: The sensibilities are quaint, but the villain wears black leather.

The murderer’s identity is well-concealed by Christie and will keep you guessing, particularly the way the crime has been staged by WCT. The whole thing happens so fast it doesn’t appear that the murderer ever gets a chance to get onstage. One moment someone is crawling around in the dark waving a flashlight, then suddenly that person collapses and the flashlight goes out. For all the audience knows, the hapless victim might have stuck a finger in the electric socket.

Steneck’s staging and the set design by Randall Smith favor the back wall and would be more at home behind a proscenium than on WCT’s cozy three-quarter round configuration. The abandoned downstage half of the playing area sits like a great empty maw, daring the actors to tread upon it.

The actors do dare, however, especially Kip Hogan, who gives a robust characterization of the nosy, boisterous gardener, Miss Peake, and saucer-eyed Ginger Richardson, who makes a lively Clarissa.

The rest of the cast brings modest energy and an Englishness amusingly counterfeited from years of watching “Masterpiece Theatre.”

‘The Spider’s Web’

A Westminster Community Theatre presentation of the Agatha Christie mystery. Directed by Edward J. Steneck. With Lee Parry, Brice Smith, Jim Sexton, Ginger Richardson, Tiffany Smith, Kip Hogan, James Stewart, Barry Baxter, Tony Grande, Bob Goff and Jennifer Robinson. Set design by Randall Smith. Lights and sound by Lonn Richardson. Costumes by Sandi Newcomb. Plays Friday and Saturday at 8:30 p.m. through Feb. 8. Matinee at 2 p.m. on Feb. 2. At the Westminster Community Theatre, 7272 Maple St., Westminster. Tickets: $7 to $9. (714) 527-8463.