Theater Review : A Little ‘Murder’ Goes a Wrong Way in La Mirada

Other less-endowed community-theater groups may look enviously at the La Mirada Playhouse. After all, unlike some groups that still eke out an existence in church halls and clammy auditoriums, La Mirada Playhouse’s home is the lush, comfortable La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts. Now here’s a real theater.

A big theater, as well--maybe too big for director J.D. Reichelderfer’s staging of the Agatha Christie chestnut “Murder at the Vicarage.” As Christie’s initial Miss Marple novel (1930), then as one of her first Miss Marple plays, adapted by Moie Charles and Barbara Toy (1949), “Vicarage” is the vintage Marple scenario in which a grandmotherly old lady gets to the bottom of the crime.

If the play isn’t always charming, Marple is, and Pattric Walker’s exuberant performance is all gingerbread and spice--with the brain ticking away the whole time.

Her performance also is to the scale of this house, a measure which Reichelderfer would have done well to use for the rest of his cast. Sometimes this show sounds and feels a million miles away from the audience; even Joe Yakovetic’s single-piece set of the vicarage study looks dwarfed.

It’s a definite impediment to your involvement in the plot--which, as with all Christie yarns, is everything. Once magistrate and church warder Col. Protheroe is murdered in the Vicar’s study (Michael R. Havnaer is dead-on as the nice rev), Christie already has managed to implicate half her dramatis personae as suspects. She quickly implicates the rest, until the mood of guilt hanging over this place is nearly Gothic.

Could it possibly be the good rev? Probably not, but what about the reverend’s wife (a serviceable Susan E. Taylor) and her suspicious-looking nephew (an uneven Ramsey Warfield)? Surely the stuttering curate (a method-heavy Tom Royer) is a candidate, as well as the Colonel’s bratty daughter (a loud but ineffective Holly Sneed), his American wife (a wooden Brenda Bell) and her artist lover (an increasingly confident Ivan Allen).

My companion suspected that even the local doctor (a forgettable Jeffrey Lappin) was a suspect; indeed, the plot is a kind of marvel of concealed evidence, decoys and motives. Miss Marple, of course, uncovers them without the forensics knowledge of Inspector Slack (Christie’s character name is her little Dickens joke, but Godfrey J. Fies makes him even more useless than he already is). Marple uses--ta-da!--common sense and knowledge of the locals of the burg of St. Mary Mead.

Some cast members, though, come dangerously close to defeating Marple’s purpose and telegraphing their characters’ guilt ahead of time. In other cases (without naming names for the sake of audience sleuths), actors so overdo the guilt routine in advance of the climax that we know they’re innocent. In the technical department of dialect, this is a well-trained team. But there are also few with Walker’s skill to fill the theater.

One is Amy Hochstein, who puts on a comedy clinic as the Vicar’s hapless maid. The other is Elizabeth A. Moore, who makes major stuff of her minor role as the effete Mrs. Price Ridley. In a nice case of theatrical justice, both Walker and Moore are rewarded with costumer Scott Lane’s best, flowery work.

* “Murder at the Vicarage,” La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, 14900 La Mirada Blvd., La Mirada. Friday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2:30 p.m. Ends Sunday. $20. (714) 994-6310 or (310) 944-9801. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes. Michael R. Havnaer: The Vicar

Pattric Walker: Miss Marple

Susan E. Taylor: Griselda

Ramsey Warfield: Dennis

Amy Hochstein: Mary

Tom Royer: Ronald Hawes

Holly Sneed: Lettice Protheroe

Elizabeth A. Moore: Mrs. Price Ridley

Brenda Bell: Anne Protheroe

Ivan Allen: Lawrence Redding

Godfrey J. Fies: Inspector Slack

A La Mirada Playhouse production of Agatha Christie’s mystery. Directed by J.D. Reichelderfer. Set: Joe Yakovetic. Lights: Jacqueline Jones Watson. Costumes: Scott Lane. Sound: Chuck McCarroll.