SWEETLY PLAYFUL TREATMENT
OF A COMPLICATED PLOT

The prolific author Agatha Christie (1890-1976) was the creator of 66 novels, 14 volumes of short stories and 20 plays, ten of which have been published. Half of her novels involved a quirky, fussy little Belgian private detective named Hercule Poirot solving mysteries of murder. Ironically, Christie hated him more and more over time. By 1930, Agatha Christie said she found Poirot “insufferable”; by 1960, she felt that Poirot was a “detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep.” Nevertheless, audiences (who understandably spent less time with him that Christie did) loved him; they wanted more and more of his clever Sherlock Holmes-like deductions and biting wit. Hercule’s frequent sidekick, something of a Dr. Watson to extend the analogy to Holmes, is Captain Arthur Hastings, giving Poirot someone to explain things to, which we the listener get to eavesdrop upon and learn ourselves.

Alas, Christie can no longer provide such stories, but North Coast Rep playwright and director Steven Dietz has given the persnickety gentleman a new life, spinning off a few characters from her Murder on the Links into a brand new adventure for the curious investigator and his loyal friend Hastings.

What’s a good mystery without a bevy of victims, suffering loved ones, and, of course, numerous suspects? Rather than cast half the actors in San Diego to pull this off, Dietz opts to start the show by bringing out his cast of six who tell us that they’ll be playing 29 different characters. That’s actually more impressive than it sounds because Omri Schein is always Poirot and Valerie Larsen is always cast (cross-gender) as Captain Hasting, so the math tells you that the other four will be going through a LOT of costume changes to pull of the remaining 27 roles. To their credit, the talented ensemble of Brian Mackey, Gabbie Adner, Amanda Sutton, and Christopher M. Williams, mold their faces, voices, and bodies expertly to avoid any question of which character we are currently seeing, except for a fun case of twins, where the similarity is intentional.

For this world premiere of his script and production, Dietz pulls out every device to give Peril in the Alps the Christie treatment. A wife is kidnapped; a husband disappears; Hercule questions the possible connection as we meet all the eventual suspects who might be involved in the disappearances. It’s a classic Christie tribute, for which Dietz deserves credit. The storyline works, but it’s actually not the essence of the experience or the reason to see this show. In fact, the plot is a little too convoluted for its two-hour timeslot with so much activity; while Poirot himself always solves it all, you may leave still putting some pieces together. One clever device Dietz pulls out is that, late in the game, the characters restate what we should know (and a bit more) through a puppet show. And it does help! Had this been a novel that Dietz was adapting, I’d say this was a brilliant way to make up for the ton of slashing needed to shorten a book; given that this is a new work, it was an interesting choice just to write it into something original.

But this isn’t to pan the script; it’s to say that the plot is more of a device to give Dietz, as director, plenty of room to play with a bounty of fun characters through a great collection of actors. The effect is a bit mixed. On the one hand, there’s so much good humor and tongue-in-cheek performance that the vaudevillian exuberance is hard not to love. On the other hand, with two hours and almost everything over the top, it does start to feel like one note after a while, like a YouTube video being played at 1.25%. The exception to this – and why the show does work in the end – is Schein’s outstanding performance as Poirot. He slows things down, measuredly, with an off look at a cup or a smile at someone that we know is false; the effect is delightful and Christie would have hated him in the best possible way. Schein is the perfect mirror to the insanity going on around him and it brings the production home.  I’ve seen a number of people play Poirot over the years, but Schein’s performance takes the cake. Or, perhaps, in this case, takes the cup of hot Belgian cocoa.

photos by Aaron Rumley

Peril in the Alps
North Coast Repertory Theatre
987 Lomas Santa Fe Drive in Solana Beach
Wed & Thurs at 7; Fri at 8; Sat at 2 & 8; Sun at 2 & 7
ends on May 18, 2025
for tickets, call 858.481-1055 or visit North Coast Rep