Sleuth
Anthony Shaffer’s Sleuth is a likeable evening’s entertainment but lacking in the pace it needs to be great. Set in a Wiltshire manor house, the play follows a complicated murder mystery game waged between detective writer, Andrew Wyke, and young Italian-Scot, Milo Tindle, who’s currently ‘entertaining’ Andrew’s wife.
Andrew invites Milo round for a meeting of minds, with the great opener “So I hear you want to marry my wife”. As they discuss the fickle Marguerite, the real reason why Milo is there becomes apparent. “This is, as they say, where the plot thickens.”
Peter Bowles plays Andrew in a performance that perhaps owes a little too much to John Cleese. That said, his efforts pay off well in places – I would like to have seen his rather manic energy given more freedom still to stop the play becoming quite so static. When he does fully grasp Andrew’s intelligence and fevered imagination, the result is exciting.
As the hot-blooded other man, Gray O’Brien seems uncomfortable, perhaps frustrated by the limitations of this pretty-boy character. Like Bowles, he finds greater success when he gives in to more passionate, and mischievous, moments.
Paul Farnsworth‘s modern design provides a huge white room filled with suede furniture and just the ‘right’ amount of fashionable clutter, not least the row of neatly hung handguns, obligatory décor for a detective writer. Nick Richings adds some clever lighting to the mix – watch out in particular for his impressive shadow work. On a less effective note, watch out, too, for the rather oddly placed laughing clown who must spend the evening wondering exactly what he’s doing there.
Perhaps we expect more from our thrillers than in 1970 when Sleuth first appeared, for today Shaffer’s piece seems to suffer most for its lack of pace. That’s most dangerously the case in Act One when the impact of some of the better lines is lost while the audience waits for things to speed up. The second half fares a little better as detective fact meets detective fiction and more satisfactory complications develop.
Elijah Moshinsky‘s direction doesn’t do much to crank up the action. Granted, he does a competent enough job, but the missed opportunities to exploit the intelligence, wit and speed contained within the script are obvious. With such an abundance of games, riddles and deception, this could have been a very involving piece of theatre.
Instead, Moshinsky seeks to titillate in the play’s dying moments with the introduction of a homoerotic element, the wily old man both challenged and beguiled by his younger foe, but it’s not enough. As Andrew tells Milo, “There is no point in playing a game unless you play it to the hilt.” It’s good advice for directors of murder-mystery plays, too.
– Sarah Beaumont
