Fresh off the corn-pone musical Shucked, Broadway in Chicago’s CIBC Theatre plays host to another much-needed dose of escapist entertainment as the North American tour of Clue stops in for a brief but amusing stay.
This review could be as simple as one sentence: If you loved the 1985 cult classic film this play is based on, get downtown and let the farce be with you.
A high-speed joyride with its single act clocking in at 90 minutes, the stage production of Clue leans heavily into pratfalls and silly gags. When someone asks the butler who designed the Boddy mansion that Col. Mustard (a malaprop-arific David Hess), Miss Scarlet (a sly Christina Anthony) et al have been summoned to by a mysterious blackmailer, the butler Wadsworth answers, “The Parker Brothers.” Because of course he does.
Jeff Skowron, a spritely bundle of malicious good cheer, kills (in more ways than one) as Wadsworth, mugging to the audience and dispensing rapid-fire zingers like Martin Short with his odometer rolled back 30 years. But can he solve the murders in this building?
Other standouts include Donna English as Mrs. White, whose “Flames on the side of my face!” bit is a fitting homage to Madeline Kahn, and the spaz-tastic John Shartzer as Mr. Green. The entire cast, which remains together onstage through most of the show, displays amiable energy as they explore every inch of a set that nostalgically evokes the rooms from the game board we know so well.
Now that you’re clued in, why not have a little fun figuring out who killed who in which room and with what weapon as you keep the winter weather and the stress of the destruction of our constitutional republic at bay? Now more than ever, we need the laughs.
Clue runs through March 2 at Broadway in Chicago’s CIBC Theatre.
For a full roundup of reviews of this show, visit Theatre in Chicago.
Photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade
