September 27–Oct 13
Colorful characters, a cozy setting and an ominously increasing body count all point to one culprit: Agatha Christie. A stage adaptation of her 1939 novel And Then There Were None, so creepy and compelling it's still the best-selling mystery of all time, opens this month at The Pennsylvania Playhouse.
The premise of the story has 10 guests lured to a secluded island. They're happy enough to arrive at the lovely seaside mansion, but instead of finding their hosts, they're treated to a mysterious nursery rhyme that accuses them all of murder. “When the first guest dies, they brush it off as suicide,” says director Marian Barshinger, “but they come to find they're being picked off.”
Artistic director of Allentown's Players of the Stage, Barshinger is directing at The Pennsylvania Playhouse for the first time on ATTWN, and going from youth theater to a murder mystery brings some welcome variety to her work. “I love working with teens and children,” she says, “but I'm also fascinated by darker, more challenging content.”
Barshinger's cast is fitted out with costumes that adhere to the style of the period and reinforce a range of personalities, from the gruff retired military man to the flamboyant young dandy, and the nubile, cool-headed beauty to the seemingly harmless grandma. As time (and murder) progresses, the peaceful luxury of the mansion goes from the warm, safe setting of light social banter to an unseemly, unsettlingly site of uncovered secrets and death.
Ten little soldier figurines break one by one as mysterious murders mount. Can you guess the killer?
$25 | Fri. & Sat.: 7:30 p.m.; Sun.: 3 p.m. | 390 Illick's Mill Rd., Bethlehem | 610.865.6665 | paplayhouse.org
