'Murder on the Orient Express' at McCarter: Hang on for the ride

by John Timpane, STAFF WRITER for the Philadelphia Inquirer

Cinematic is the proper word for McCarter Theatre's dramatic setting of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express. It's a lithe, pared-down, forward-rushing two hours, a glittering entertainment with just enough serious point to send you home thoughtful.

Quite a talent trust created this one. Start with Christie and her 1934 thriller, in which a luxury train struggles westward from Istanbul, getting stuck in the snow somewhere near Belgrade, when something terrible happens. Belgian detective Hercule Poirot is on board and takes up the case — one, he tells us, that challenged every value he holds as a lawman. The novel was made into a star-studded Oscar-winning film in 1974; a Kenneth Branagh-directed version is due this year.

Funmeister Ken Ludwig (Lend Me a Tenor and much else) had his way with the story. Emily Mann produced, gathering a bunch of Tony-winners to design the train (Beowulf Boritt), the ambience, and especially the wardrobe. That fell to William Ivey Long, who splendidly combines new designs with actual 1930s clothes.

We first behold an upstairs abduction of a little girl. Our eyes are directed upward by an iris, an old-time movie effect created for the stage by moving curtained enclosures, mapping off this or that part of the stage for our attention. Then Poirot (wonderfully done by Allan Corduner, too rueful to be Chaplinesque) introduces himself, and then we're hurled onto the train, surrounded by characters, stories, accents. Ludwig chooses, well, to keep the number of passengers small. Evan Zes is hilarious as Monsieur Bouc, the ingenuous, befuddled Watson to Poirot's Sherlock. Alexandra Silber is tragically delicious as Countess Andrenyi, and long-limbed Julie Halston is a blonde, Ann Millerish Helen Hubbard. Everyone is lying.A scream stage right beckons all to rush the length of the train car; the set moves underneath them as they clamber from coach to coach. But thanks to the Christie tension, the express-train plot, and the broad-stroke acting, the spectacular set seldom overwhelms the people.

Orient Express might be light entertainment but for its 1934 undertone: instability, decay of institutions, depression, dread of impending catastrophe. "The law must be obeyed," Poirot shouts, "or we become barbarians!" We recall that opening kidnapping (modeled on the 1933 Lindbergh abduction/murder in East Amwell, N.J.), seed of a sick vine. Murder on the Orient Express leaves us in a familiar place: fear of lawlessness, darkness, barbarians at the gate.