Stage Review - Clue: The Musical (Edmonds Driftwood Players)
Stage Review - Clue: The Musical
Presented By: Edmonds Driftwood Players - Edmonds, WA
Show Run: March 14 - April 06, 2025
Date Reviewed: Saturday, March 22, 2025
Run Time: 1 Hour, 50 Minutes (no intermission)
Reviewed By: Tucker Cholvin
You may already be familiar with Clue from the inimitable 1985 film starring Tim Curry, or perhaps your own family game nights. Less widely known is the musical adaptation of the board game, Clue: The Musical, which ran off-Broadway in 1997. The show, with its book written by Peter DePietro, music by Galen Blum, Wayne Barker and Vinnie Martucci, and lyrics by Tom Chiodo, closed after a brief run. But in the time since, the musical has taken on a second life in community theatre productions, where it offers audiences the chance to play along as familiar characters like Colonel Mustard and Mrs. Peacock deduce the weapon, location, and murderer from 216 possible combinations.
Edmonds Driftwood Players’ new production, directed by Anna Doepp, invites the audience to test their own detective skills by passing out pens and sheets of paper to track clues, eliminate red herrings, and solve the mystery. Audience volunteers are also invited at the beginning to discreetly select three cards determining the weapon, location, and murderer that is unique to that evening’s production. The character of the murder victim, Mr. Boddy (Royce Napolitino), plays a more central role in this production, gathering the characters to his mansion while forecasting his own demise. Each character, we learn, has ample motive for a little light murder, and they plot across numbers like “Everyday Devices” and “Corridors and Halls.” Following the murder, a Detective (Cassidy Fialkiewicz) arrives to interrogate the suspects before the outcome is revealed.
While the 1985 film has become a cult classic over 40 years, it is easier to understand why the 1997 musical does not loom as large in popular culture. In large part this is because the musical’s script has to be expansive enough to accommodate all 216 possible endings for the production, which forces it to rely heavily on gags and character humor, at the expense of developing the plot. The jokes themselves also land intermittently; at times the characters joke self-referentially about being trapped inside a two dimensional board, while at other times this pretense disappears. And even after his murder, in the second half Mr. Boddy’s character disconcertingly continues to hover and narrate the activity from the next realm.
Despite the limitations of the material, the Driftwood Players’ production hits some high notes. Miss Scarlett (Anabel Chacón) and Professor Plum (Scott McKinstry) bring two-dimensional characters to three-dimensional life enjoyably, making them more than just board game caricatures. And in her role as Mrs. Peacock, Nicole Roundy has ample opportunity to display her impressive voice. Finally, Cassidy Fialkiewicz’s Detective offers the production some fresh air in the second half, and she clearly relishes her role making each of the suspects squirm under scrutiny. The production shines best in ensemble numbers; the actors’ voices blend well and they play off of each other to good effect.
With moments like these, EDP’s production manages to spin some straw into gold, but the limitations of the script hold it back in other places. But criticisms fade when the lights go up and the cast reveals the correct combination of weapon, location, and murderer that has been hinted at throughout the production – and each audience member can find out (and reveal) if they were able to guess the correct combination. In this way, EDP’s production of Clue is much like the board game: perhaps not the most sophisticated affair, but good fun all around. And given that the remainder of its run is nearly sold-out, audiences seem to agree.
Clue: The Musical, presented by Edmonds Driftwood Players, runs on stage at the Wade James Theatre in Edmonds through April 6. For more information, including ticket availability and sales, visit https://edmondsdriftwoodplayers.org/.
Photo credit: Dale Sutton
