Can you put the Clues together at TLT?
Clue is more than a game and movie, it’s also a play to add to your spooky season list!
Coauthored by Madi Williams
The Tacoma Little Theater opening night of “CLUE Onstage” was a full house of laughs and suspense throughout the show. Chris Serface started the show with a land acknowledgment that the theater is on Puyallup tribal land. Inside the theater itself the new chairs were exciting to see, since the chairs before were very rundown where now they have chairs like the movie theaters.
Throughout the play there were moments here and there that gave off “And Then There Were None” vibes, a book by Agatha Christie where strangers are brought to a mystery island and dead bodies start dropping just like within the play.
The theater has a revolving stage which made it so that they were able to show rooms like; the hall, the lounge, the dining room, the study, the kitchen, the library, the conservatory which had a secret passage to the lounge, and the billiard room. This allowed the stage to be able to showcase almost every room that is also included in the game. Additionally, the Hall of the house was beautifully designed to resemble an old mansion and gave off some creepy vibes. Not only does the play bring in connections from the game but it also pulls lines from the 1985 Clue movie like “flames, on the side of my face”.
Taking place in 1954, not far from Washington D.C., our well known characters, Miss. Scarlet, Mrs. Peacock, Mrs. White, Colonel Mustard, Mr. Green and Professor Plum, all receive letters to come to The Boddy Manor as it is “in their best interest” to do so. Once there, we learn that each of them is being blackmailed by their host and paying him to keep quiet about each of their individual crimes they have committed. Once their host shows up to the “party,” things start taking a turn.
Throughout the evening, the core six are visited by several additional characters and each start dropping like flies, “even three murders in three minutes!” But the million dollar question is who is killing all of these people?
Filled with several twists, this show will definitely keep you on your toes. Even people in the audience were whispering throughout trying to figure out who done it. The characters were brilliantly cast and everyone did their part to bring the magic of the board game to life.
There are bits of the show that had heavy choreography including one of everyone running in and out of doors, timing it to be a frantic search for clues. There were even scenes that had a “rewind” effect where the cast had to do what they previously were doing but backwards to demonstrate retracing their steps. The choreography and blocking was done beautifully and executed flawlessly.
The show has a 1 hour and 29 minute runtime plus a 15 minute intermission. Tacoma Little Theatre also put out an Audience Warning for content including sexual suggestiveness, adult language, strobe light effects, gunshots, and fake smoking and alcohol usage.
The theater is offering concessions as long as audience members place their mask back on when they are between sips and snacks. When entering the theater be ready with your vaccination card or proof of negative test and I.D to make entering quick and easy. “Clue Onstage” runs from Oct, 22 until Nov. 7 with a pay what you can performance on Nov. 4 at 7:30 p.m. This gives you seven days for you to be in the game of Clue with this killer cast and see if you can figure out who done it.
