Play review: Murder in Triplicate

Of course, April wouldn’t be complete without my annual visit to Candlelight Theatre. This local play company that performs inside the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site is a real gem. Resident playwright James Trofatter, along with Donna Wing (the creative director of the troupe), wrote three more engaging murder vignettes for this spring production. Trofatter and Wing shared in the directing responsibilities too.

Candlelight Theatre usually performs either a single play that takes place throughout the house or three shorter plays performed in different rooms of the house. In either case, the audience rotates through the house to see the different scenes or plays. Murder in Triplicate was the latter case: three plays performed in various rooms (the dining room, the master bedroom, and the back parlor).

I started out in the dining room with the performance of The Photograph Album. I recognized John West, Heather Wing, and James Trofatter immediately. The story, set in 1927, was engaging. A sister and brother were involved in a yearly ritual: looking through a family photo album in hopes of uncovering some long buried secret that would explain why their parents died in a murder-suicide. Twists and turns and unnatural manipulations of a photo revealed unknown family secrets.

Next, my group was led up the front stairs to the master bedroom, where Benjamin Harrison died in 1901. As we waited for the bell to toll, to signal the three plays to begin (the plays all start and end at roughly the same time…there must be an art to writing and performing plays of similar lengths), I felt my ears prick up in canine-like curiosity.

One of the actresses was sitting in a chair covered with a crazy quilt—once again showing how the troupe makes good use of their Victorian surrounding. (Crazy quilts were a brief fad of upper class wealthy women in the late 1800s—and this play was set in 1898.) Then I noticed that the bedspread on the Harrison bed was a crazy quilt. I did not remember seeing that before.

I asked our room hostess about it; the one on the chair was a prop but the one on the bed was original. As we filed out of the room, I peered at the quilt but not long enough to gain any satisfaction. I noticed signatures in the scraps of clothes used to make the quilt and a fan shape—a nod to the Orientalism of the time. The hostess later explained that the Site rotates the spreads on the bed. (So maybe I didn’t notice it before because it wasn’t there…or it was before I knew about crazy quilts.)

In this second play, The Companion, I recognized Sue Beecher, always a delight to see perform. I did not recognize Tim Long or Laura Kuhn from previous performances, but all were excellent. As usual, things in the play weren’t always what they seem. Sue played a grouchy invalid wife, Tim her loving and devoted husband, and Laura her nurse accused of murdering a previous patient.

During intermission, we were shepherded down to the basement for a biobreak. The basement is lined with photos, which to my amazement seemed to be different than earlier visits. Photos ranged from those of Harrison’s grandfather (William Henry), Benjamin Harrison himself with other generals in the Civil War, himself as a staunch upright patriarch, and one of Lincoln as a young attorney and counselor at law (as written on the photograph).

The third play, Betsy, took place in the back parlor. I immediately recognized Ellis Hall, Donna Wing, and Ken Eder. Often a ham on rye, this time Ken played a maniacal lawyer. Set in 1925, this play centered on a pair of newlyweds who married after a brief romance. The wife slowly learns from the lawyer the twisted family circumstances that she married into. Again, nothing is quite as it seems.

When Candlelight Theatre productions are three separate plays rather than one long one, the cast gathers in the front hallway to greet the audience as they leave. First up was James Trofatter whom I thanked for all of the plays that he has written and I have enjoyed. He seemed a bit taken aback (which made me wonder how many people are regular attendees—his reaction suggested that I might be an odd duck).

As I worked my way down the line of actors, the tables turned. Donna Wing expressed that she was happy to see me, that she recognized me from previous productions. It was my turn to be a bit taken aback. Of course, in the setting of a historical home where the actors perform a mere inches from the audience (and on occasion include the audience), it shouldn’t be surprising that the audience registers with the actors. Her noticing my attendance at production after production caught me a bit off guard but added to the delight of the evening.

Murder in Triplicate runs for another weekend. But if you cannot make it, any of their productions would be fantastic to see. (Be sure to stop by the house for a tour too.) Candlelight Theatre used to perform just spring and fall productions, but in recent years expanded to include more productions. Next up is in July—The Trial of Nancy Clem—a previous production perhaps (Cold Blooded) but this time being performed at the nearby beautifully restored Indiana Landmarks Center.

Play review: Victorian Villains

October would not be complete without a play by Candlelight Theatre at the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site.

Candlelight Theatre performed another James Trofatter production, Victorian Villains. The premise was similar, though the content completely different, to last year.

The audience members were potential trainees at a school. Our guide, a descendant of Dr. Watson, guided us through the school where we met various villains to learn their tactics and hear advice. (Planning is key! Don’t get greedy.)

In this production, we were led through different rooms of the house, sometimes standing as the villains talked, other times sitting. The rooms we entered were the typical ones (parlor, library, dining room, sitting room, Harrison’s bedroom, ballroom) plus another one (the bedroom that contains the photo of Old Whiskers).

The audience I was with for the most part seemed new to Candlelight Theatre and the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site. But they seemed to thoroughly enjoy it and get into interactions with the actors.

The villains that we met were many and varied. Two were women from Indiana: Nancy Clem and Belle Gunness. Nancy Clem was a woman in 19^th century Indianapolis charged with murder and prosecuted by Benjamin Harrison. (Candlelight Theatre has done and is scheduled to do again a play devoted to Nancy Clem.)

Others were villains throughout the US and the UK. Some I knew: H.H. Holmes, Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, Lizzie Andrew Borden, Jack the Ripper, and Hannibal Lecter. Holmes is perhaps the least well-known in the list. He is famous for murders during the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. I was first introduced to him on an Irvington ghost tour due to the murders he committed in that Indiana town.)

Some were new to me: the Bloody Benders, Mary Ann Cotton, William Palmer, Amelia Elizabeth Dyer, William Burke, Dr. Robert Knox, Sweeney Todd, and Mrs. Lovett. Those from the British Isles were overrepresented among serial killers in the play.

The Bloody Benders ran a general store and way station for travelers in Kansas, killing dozens of travelers that stopped.

Mary Ann Cotton, a serial killer in the UK, poisoned several husbands and then a stepson with arsenic. William Palmer was an English doctor who poisoned family members and associates with strychnine, and then collected on insurance policies.

Amelia Elizabeth Dyer was another British serial killer, who engaged in baby farming (taking in unwanted infants for money)…and up to 400 deaths of babies in her care.

William Burke (along with a William Hare) committed 16 murders to supply Dr. Robert Knox with corpses for his anatomy lectures in Edinburgh. (Apparently grave robbing or corpse resurrection wasn’t sufficient.)

Sweeney Todd was a barber in London who dispatched his customers/victims via a trapdoor, and then Mrs. Lovett used their bodies in her famously delicious meat pies.

Many of the actors were old hands and were a delight to see in action again: Heather Wing (Dr. Watson), Ken Eder (H.H. Holmes), Donna Wing (Nancy Clem), and Dennis Jones (William Palmer). Alas, James Trofatter was absent from his own play.

Victorian Villains was a well-done production and an enjoyable way to celebrate Halloween. And as advertised, the school taught lessons to its trainees.

Lessons learned: Stay away from people who seem to be a black hole for missing people. Be careful if anyone takes out an insurance policy on you, or learns that you have money. Always sit with your back against a wall and never on top of a trap door. (You never know when someone will try to bash in your skull with a hammer from behind a curtain.) And watch out for poison.

Play review: Murder Most Merry

This spring Candlelight Theatre presented another delightful trio of plays. Candlelight Theatre performs twice annually at the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site (though their 2017-2018 season will consist of four productions!).

The historical home of our 23^rd President is the perfect backdrop for period play productions. Candlelight Theatre productions are either single stories that unfold in different rooms in the house or a collection of thirty-minute plays performed in different rooms.

Murder Most Merry was of the latter type. Audience members were assigned one of three rooms: the back parlor, the dining room, or the attic. After one play ended, audience members moved to the next room—and the next play. As usual, an intermission in the basement took place after two plays had been performed.

I started out in the dining room. The docent attached to us was quite talkative before each of the plays started—and knowledgeable about house. (It turns out that she was a high school teacher in a previous life.) In the dining room, we learned all about the silver, the White House china designed for Harrison, Mrs. Harrison’s Presbyterian roots being the motivation for her indefatigable work, her conservation of the White House, and the renovation of the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site. Did I mention that the docent was quite talkative?

On occasion, Candlelight Theatre involves the audience in their plays. The first play in the dining room was one of those. Such a Nice Little Kitty was a three-person (and one cat) play. Walter, the husband, is distraught by the noise of their obscenely large cat—which of course, hates him and loves his wife. In the end, one of them doesn’t survive to see daylight. The dialogue was witty, and the audience “involved” as Walter looks for the darn cat underneath the audience’s seats. I enjoyed recognizing actors that I have seen in previous performances. The wife, Sue Beecher, was one of those repeat actors.

Next up was the play in the attic. We wound up the main staircase to the third floor. The bits and pieces of the Presidential Pet exhibit were all around us. To my left was the blown-up picture of Harrison’s adult son Russell with Benjamin Harrison’s grandchildren and Old Whiskers the goat. (I have a soft spot for Old Whiskers.)

The play in the attic—The Case of the Well-Staged Murder—was a radio play set in November 1947 and performed before a live audience. The play was a Sherlock Holmes murder mystery. A man is shot in a park on a cold, rainy evening. Who did it? Sherlock Holmes does not disappoint us. (Ellis Hall as Sherlock was another Candlelight Theatre actor that I recognized from past performances.)

The actors file in, preparing for the radio play. As the audience, we see their props for sound effects to imitate walking on gravel, the roll of thunder, gunshots, or doors opening and closing. At different times throughout the play, an ad cut in for a line of men’s clothing—the dapper Dr. Watson modeled the clothing for us. We were asked to applaud with an Applause sign. Again, the audience was a participant in the play—a typical occurrence in Candlelight Theatre productions.

The last play of the evening—An Inspector Answers—was held in the back parlor on the first floor. I had not seen several other regular actors yet so I was pleasantly surprised with this play. Most of the actors were regulars that I recognized—James Trofatter, Donna Wing, Heather Wing, and of course, Ken Eder.

The minute that Ken walked through the door, I gasped in delight. I love Ken Eder. He is a complete ham on rye. An Inspector Answers was a silly play with absurd dialogue and situations that leave you laughing. For example, every time mention was made of the wife going to the country for a visit, everyone turned to look at a painting of a country scene. Or when they pulled guns on each other, they kept shifting in unison who they aimed their guns at.

The husband is accused of murdering his wife. But through twists and turns, and a love triangle (or quadrangle…I lost track), the plot and motives change. The actors clearly had a hoot with this play. And so did the audience.

I highly recommend any production that Candlelight Theatre puts on. Their plays are enjoyable, the acting superb, and the ambiance delightful. The Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site is the perfect spot for their productions.

While you are at it, stop back for a tour of the house. It is well worth it. And be sure to look for the photo of Old Whiskers in one of the bedrooms—and while the Presidential Pet exhibit is running, in the attic.

Play review: The Witching Hour

As their Halloween production for 2016, Candlelight Theatre performed snippets in individual rooms throughout the Benjamin Harrison house. As usual, the audience moved between the rooms—sometimes sitting for these mini performances, other times standing.

We started out in the barn behind the house. We, the audience, were prospective students, visiting Convention, the only school of wizardry and witchcraft in North America. Grimm, our witch hostess, greeted us and introduced us to a professor with German heritage, Abramelin the Mage, the dean of the school. Grimm then led us through the school, introducing us to different professors and aspects of wizardry that we would learn if we enroll.

First up was communication with and control of demons and ghosts. We were introduced to the ghost of John Bell and the ghost of Kate, who haunted the house where John and his family lived in Tennessee in the early 1800s. Ultimately Ignis Fatuus, professor of Ghostology and Demonology, was unable to banish the ghosts.

In the next room, we met the professor in charge of teaching spells, particularly those of love, money, and protection. Most important, Glamorous Jinx told us, do not just repeat empty words but use words that have meaning for you. After the professor left, a student from a European school entered our room, accidentally having gotten off at the wrong flue (chimney flues are “train stops” in the wizard transportation system). A spat ensued between her and Grimm. Clearly, she saw the Convention as an inferior school, and had a revulsion to wizards having anything to do with muggles (or mundanes, as Grimm referred to us).

In the dining room, we were introduced to three figures who practiced the black arts: Etienne Guibourgh, Malleus Maleficarum, and Grace Sowerbutts. Grimm warned us against following their lead and selling our souls to attain the skills they had.

On the second floor, we met two professors of divination: one practiced in the arts of phrenology and tarot reading, the other practiced in the art of intestine reading. The former took a volunteer from the audience to check his skull and report on his character. The latter attempted to perform a reading of another volunteer’s intestines but was prevented from carrying it out by Grimm.

In Harrison’s bedroom, Grimm informed us that this was the bed where Harrison died. (This is actually true. He died of the flu in that bed in 1901.) Two witches sat patiently and then began to spat amongst themselves. They were Glinda the Good (aka Glinda of The Magickal Realms) and the Wicked Witch of the West (aka Elphaba of The Magickal Realms) from The Wizard of Oz. In between arguing among themselves, they described the lands that they ruled over and how The Wizard of Oz had gotten many facts terribly wrong.

Our last stop was the attic where scenes from the Salem witch trials were re-enacted. Two different women (Tituba and Bridget Bishop) were interrogated by Judge John Hathorne. One confessed and was eventually released. The other one denied all charges against her and was eventually killed.

The re-enactment was followed by the three witches from Macbeth. Grimm asked them for a prognostication about the election. After throwing items into their cauldron, they recounted their vague prediction in verse. When Grimm protested that it was too vague, she was reminded that a more precise prediction would cost money.

After a little more than an hour, the 2016 Halloween production of Candlelight Theatre came to an end. A few actors and actresses were ones that I had seen in former Candlelight Theatre productions: Grimm (Donna Wing), the judge of the Salem witch trials (Ken Eder), and one of the witches from Macbeth (Sue Beecher).

This production was different from past years when a coherent narrative, such as the trial of Nancy Clem, played out across different rooms in the house, or when audiences rotated between 3 twenty- to thirty-minute plays. The downside to productions with snippets or a single play that is performed throughout the house: the audience never has a chance to applaud or meet the performers. Instead, with productions that end in the attic, audiences are led out the side door. Into the darkened night we go, a fitting end for a Halloween production but rather anti-climatic with no way to thank the actors.

If you enjoy plays, any production of Candlelight Theatre will be a treat. Candlelight Theatre performs productions twice a year, in the spring and in the fall. They perform exclusively in the Benjamin Harrison house, a house built in 1874—the perfect backdrop for the period plays that the group performs. Their plays are often original productions written by James Trofatter. The intimacy of the actors and the audience creates an atmosphere that you do not experience at a typical playhouse.

Play review: Opus

A play accompanied by a quartet from the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra at the historic Hilbert Circle Theatre—I was intrigued. A play reading? I had never attended one and was unsure how it was different from a play.

Kind of the same but kind of different. There is no set. The actors refer to scripts as they read their lines but clearly they know the material well, as if this is a last dry run before they go out on stage to perform the play. The stage is lined with chairs, where they retire to when their character is not speaking. Another person seated to the side reads any stage directions needed to place the scene in time or space.

In some respect witnessing a reading is like listening to a radio play or reading a book. In these cases, there is no stage set. The words create the scene in your mind. However, watching a play reading gives you extra info from the facial expressions and body languages of the actors.

Opus sketches the drama of being in a string quartet. The Lazara Quartet is down one member. The members have just decided to offer the position to someone. Within one week they will be performing a difficult piece at the White House. The play covers the time from immediately after the audition of the new member to just after the White House performance. Interspersed are flashbacks about the former member of the quartet that was fired and replaced.

This production of Opus was a little bit unusual. Opus, being a play about contentious relations between members of a professional string quartet, also contains music played by a string quartet. Typically the music is not live. But for this production, the music in Opus was performed by four members of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. A play with music but not a musical. This production of Opus bucked easy categorization.

Opus as it was performed at the Hilbert Circle Theatre was a thoroughly enjoyable and professional production. The acting was superb, the script witty, and the music moving. This production was a one-night affair put on by SiteLines in partnership with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.

SiteLines, to quote their literature, “creates pop-up theater events matching themes, setting and subject to just about any interest group”—such as plays for music lovers at the symphony. I’m intrigued. What is their next production?