Three lovers, three murder plots, three acts, and one hotel room. This is the recipe for a year’s worth of romance and revenge in Ron Clark and Sam Bobrick’s Murder at the Howard Johnson’s, which opens on Friday, April 20th at Lindsay Little Theatre.
Directed by Kathryn Wooldridge-Condon with assistance from Dylan Robichaud and Rebecca Anne Bloom, Murder at the Howard Johnson’s stars Holly English, Seamus McCann, and Ben Whyte in a farcical black comedy where loyalties change faster than you can get room service.
Opening on Broadway in 1979, Murder at the Howard Johnson’s wasn’t the biggest hit of the year, and after only 10 previews and four performances, the show closed abruptly. However, the show has remained popular for over three decades in community theatres throughout the world. Not everything can be a Broadway classic, but that doesn’t stop it from being a really fun show to watch.
Lindsay Little Theatre is able to bring life to this clever little show filled with seedy characters, bad ideas, and poorly executed killings.
Murder at the Howard Johnson’s follows a dysfunctional love triangle of likeable losers over the course of a year. On Christmas Eve, bored housewife Arlene (Holly English) checks into a room at the Howard Johnson’s with her lover Dr. Mitchell Lovell (Ben Whyte), a local dentist and self-proclaimed ladies’ man. The two plan to start a new life together, and summon Arlene’s husband Paul (Seamus McCann) to the hotel room to reveal their affair.
The plan is to give Paul a choice: either he can give Arlene a divorce or they’ll kill him. When Paul doesn’t take the pair seriously, they decide that Paul must meet a watery demise. But sometimes the best-laid plans don’t work out. As the show progresses, loyalties change, relationships change, rivalries are formed, and murder is on everybody’s mind. Tonight could be anybody’s last night at the Howard Johnson’s.
The strength of Lindsay Little Theatre’s production is in the casting of the characters, who could be considered relatively unlikeable. Due to each actor’s on-stage charisma and dedication to the role, likeable qualities begin to emerge so each character becomes fun to watch. The evolution of their situation, and the ever-changing loyalties between the three, keeps the audience captivated with the drama until the end.
At the centre of the show is Holly English as Arlene. Neurotic, bored, and not the sharpest crayon in the box, Arlene rips through the lives of the men in her world like a juggernaut of anxiety and selfishness. Although her husband has always treated her well, Arlene feels she has outgrown him and is looking for a better thing in the arms of her dentist.
What is interesting in Holly’s portrayal of Arlene, a true train wreck of a human being, is that she creates a character who may be the most divisive to the audience. Some audience members will really loathe her, while others may find her disturbingly relatable. Playing a succubus in thigh-high boots, Holly also manages to give Arlene a slightly trashy quality which is not over the top, but peeks out just above the surface to show the audience her true colours.
Ben Whyte, in his acting debut, gives a strong performance as Dr. Mitchell. He plays the kind of jerk who has money, a good career, and is sleeping with your ex-girlfriend. You just can’t help but hate that guy. Successful and smooth with the ladies, Mitchell lies somewhere between a Casanova and a scoundrel. With a cocksure attitude, he believes he can always get the girl and literally get away with murder. So when the tables get turned on him, it’s a lot of fun to watch.
Despite his character’s potential unlikeability, just as Holly does with Arlene, Ben’s charisma brings a certain charm to his character.
But often it is Seamus McGann, as the cuckold husband Paul, who gets the biggest laughs and becomes the most likeable of the three. A wonderful actor who can take on any sort of role, Seamus presents Paul as a loveable loser who just can’t seem to get a break. He has a sort of self-deprecating confidence that keeps him safe and often keeps him coming out on top.
Seamus also has this unique delivery of his lines that is just intensely funny. It’s hard to describe and, when I asked Shamus what he’d call the tone of voice that he uses for his character, he was unable to define it himself. But his voice work, combined with his bewildered expressions and ability to always find the right comeback, makes him the real audience favourite.
Together, the trio of performers has a strong chemistry that holds the show together. As partnerships and relationships change in each act, the actors change their relationships with one another. Each act forces two of the actors to play off each another and against the third member. This creates both an interesting narrative and a constantly changing dynamic between the actors, keeping the audience guessing just how it’s all going to end.
A fun show with a likeable cast, Murder at the Howard Johnson’s will be performed at 8 p.m. on Friday, April 20th and Saturday, April 21st and Friday, April 27th and Saturday, April 28th at the Lindsay Little Theatre (55 George St., Lindsay).
Tickets are $20 and can be purchased in advance in person or by phone at the Academy Theatre box office (2 Lindsay St. S., Lindsay, 705-324-911), online at www.kawarthatickets.ca, or at the door the night of each performance.
