Review: ‘Clue’ at the Ahmanson is mindless fun

Whether you agree with the choice of punctuation in “Clue: Live on Stage!” depends to a large extent on what you think of Jonathan Lynn’s 1985 movie. As someone who never played the board game from which all this madness derives and who found the film to be a waste of its comic ensemble’s glittering capabilities, I would have chosen to affix a question mark to the title.

“Clue: Live on Stage?” is a possibility I would never have thought to ask about, but it’s safe to say the target audience for this commercial romp isn’t a theater critic with Shakespeare and Sondheim yearnings. I’m happy to report that the North American tour production of “Clue: Live on Stage!,” which opened on Wednesday at the Ahmanson Theatre, earns its exclamation point through the breathless exuberance of its physical comedy.

Everything about the show is brisk. The dizzying pacing, the litany of hapless jokes, the all-out slapstick and the familiar shtick. Even when the cast members are running in place to simulate a chase, there is a gust of frenzy.

“Clue: Live on Stage!” wisely doesn’t give its audience too much time to consider the fine points of the story. The production, directed by Casey Hushion, proceeds in a comic blur, ideal for theatergoers who have put their brains on a low energy setting for the summer. (If Center Theatre Group’s success with “The Play That Goes Wrong” and “Peter Pan Goes Wrong” is any gauge, there’s quite a robust appetite for mirthful inanity at this time of year.)

Sandy Rustin, who wrote the play (with additional material by Hunter Foster and Eric Price), closely follows Lynn’s screenplay. There are retouches to the original tale, updates to conform to modern sensibilities and a few winking asides to the audience, but the basic recipe of a whodunit spoof is preserved.

The setting for this mystery is ingeniously established with a picture frame enclosing the image of a gloomy mansion as lightning flashes in the evening sky and rain pelts noisily down. When we move inside, Yvette (Elisabeth Yancey), the flirty French maid, is going through her household paces as Sen. Joseph McCarthy spouts his anticommunist demagoguery on the black-and-white television.

The year is 1954, and McCarthy’s Red Scare has stirred paranoia throughout the land. The dinner guests who have been mysteriously summoned and assigned pseudonyms are understandably anxious. Why have they been invited and, even more curious, why have they come?

Wadsworth (a vigorous Mark Price), the butler in charge of this unconventional gathering, is in no hurry to provide answers. But it is soon revealed that all six guests have a connection to Washington, D.C., and are being blackmailed by their late-arriving host, Mr. Boddy (Alex Syiek), for misdeeds that could imperil their professional or social standing.

Obtuse Colonel Mustard (John Treacy Egan), accident-prone Mr. Green (John Shartzer), furtive and guilty-looking Mrs. White (Tari Kelly), snooty Mrs. Peacock (Joanna Glushak), sordid and self-satisfied Professor Plum (Jonathan Spivey) and audacious Miss Scarlet (Michelle Elaine), who proudly runs a D.C. escort service, are like lambs being led to slaughter. The only difference is they have been given the murder weapons.

In handing out gift boxes with a candlestick, revolver, rope, lead pipe, wrench and dagger, Mr. Boddy has set in motion a game that by the end will leave the mansion strewn with corpses. Wadsworth presides over the homicidal goings-on like an evil genius, leading the guests on a wild goose chase to solve the mystery of a murder that is only the first of several.

The gags and laugh lines are middling at best and the situation could hardly be called a masterpiece of farcical construction. But there’s an infectious quality to the knockabout antics. The actors themselves transform into living exclamation points as the action accelerates, often to music in sequences that have the appeal of dance numbers. (Composer and music supervisor Michael Holland puts wind in the production’s madcap sails.)

Elaine’s Miss Scarlet is especially amusing when gliding heedlessly from room to room in the creepy old house. (Scenic designer Lee Savage has ingeniously arranged the swiftly shifting puzzle box of spaces.) Shartzer is so spry in his physical comedy that there are moments when he resembles a yoga master.

But as the well-synchronized production careens toward its climax, it’s Price’s Wadsworth who explodes into top farcical gear. With his back to the wall, he flings himself about the stage like a performer desperate to wring every second of his dwindling time in the spotlight. His writhing and flailing, verbally as well as bodily, serve as the 11 o’clock number.

“Clue: Live on Stage!” does its own version of the movie’s multiple endings that played in different cinemas. By this point, it’s hard to imagine that anyone’s too invested in finding out who’s behind all the nutty mayhem. The point isn’t the plot but the mad precision of the execution. Lighting designer Ryan O’Gara, sound designer Jeff Human, fight director Robert Westley and costume designer Jen Caprio ensure the production’s smooth passage.

I can’t say this is my idea of a theatrical good time, but I appreciated the zany commitment and indefatigable exertion of a company dedicated to the worthy cause of mindless fun.