Ross Zentner
Sarah Day, Casey Hoekstra, Celia A. Klehr, Cassandra Bissell and Liz Cassarino (from left) in "Murder Girl."
Sarah Day, left, Casey Hoekstra, Celia A. Klehr, Cassandra Bissell and Liz Cassarino are members of a strong cast in Forward Theater's 'Murder Girl.'
Going into the mystery comedy Murder Girl just days after the Nov. 5 election, I thought: Will it feel good to laugh? Is it okay to laugh? Do I even feel like laughing?
The production, a world premiere presented by Forward Theater at The Playhouse at the Overture Center through Nov. 24, is already nearly sold out and is a pleasant distraction — but also more than that.
This is a home-grown work: Playwright Heidi Armbruster grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin, and the setting — a Northwoods supper club — is familiar territory to most of us. This is a play that knows that old fashioneds are made with brandy, Friday night is fish fry, and the Packers are a religion.
Armbruster is is also an actor (she’ll be acting in Forward’s January production, Summer, 1976), and has written several plays with mystery tie-ins, including an adaptation of the Agatha Christie novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and Mrs. Christie, a dramatization of Christie’s real-life 1926 disappearance. She’s also written Dairyland, a comedy about a New York City food writer coming home to her father’s farm in Wisconsin.
Murder Girl’s first three acts show Armbruster knows Wisco culture and sifts plot points deftly into the action — even when the action is confined to one room.
Twins Eric (Casey Hoekstra) and LeeAnn (Cassandra Bissell) inherit their family’s supper club after their mother’s death. Eric operates the business daily; LeeAnn drops in quarterly from the Twin Cities to help with the accounting.
APT favorite Sarah Day, as one of the restaurant’s two waitresses named Charlotte (she is “the other Charlotte”), demonstrates her keen comic timing, but it’s Celia Klehr as the no-nonsense Charlotte #1 who grounds the production.
Scenic designer Steve Barnes creates an absolutely believable tavern/supper club, complete with red plush carpeting and naugahyde tablecloths in the dining room and the essential Blatz and Spotted Cow signs behind the bar. And costume designer Ren LaDessor lets the characters’ clothes relay much about them, without calling undue attention to what they’re wearing.
The talent here does not need to fall back on cultural stereotypes — the first few scenes come on a little strong with the Fargo, if you know what I mean, and nothing is lost when everyone relaxes a bit and lets up some on the up-north accents. This cast allows for character to emerge from caricature. And Murder Girl is best when it leans into the mystery at hand, which is genuinely absorbing.
Bissell, as the high-strung sister back from the big city, shows real dimension in a difficult role. And Casem AbuLughod, as Ted the cook, develops slowly as a powerhouse, using body language and well-timed delivery of his relatively few lines.
Does the ending come a little fast? Sometimes the final act seems like a lot of information, but Armbruster provides some clever stagework to satisfyingly complete a one-room murder mystery with no body onsite.
Murder Girl is more than just a comedy and more than a whodunnit. It asks questions about what home, and family, means; what it means to protect someone and what it means to let that someone go. It asks what it means to be “normal” among a roomful of “characters” — is “normal” always just an act?
Happily, the play does answer another question: It is okay to laugh.
