It's A Trap!

The Mousetrap

by Agatha Christie

January 16, 2016

Long Beach Playhouse

I saw that The Mousetrap was playing at the Long Beach Playhouse, and Linda and I decided that we needed to see it because we had seen my friend Scott's play during the Hollywood Fringe Festival, "Kill A Better Mousetrap", and we wanted to see the source material.  

We ate dinner at The Crooked Duck, which is just down the street from the playhouse.  The restaurant and bar looks to be a place that locals like to visit, which includes the students from nearby Cal State Long Beach.  The decor included a lot of ducks and water skis.  The menu explained the Legend of the Crooked Duck, which had to do with a boat hitting a duck and instead of killing it, the duck had a twisted neck and lived.  We sat at the bar, at which they also serve the full menu.  Linda had fish and chips, and I had the meatloaf with mashed potatoes.  Our food was quite tasty, and I would love to go back there for breakfast someday.  I also had Not Your Dad's Root Beer, and ooh, it was good.  I would like to have a case of that in my house, please.  It won't last long.  We received a discount on our dinner because we had tickets to the play.  Pretty cool!  We found out from a woman at the bar whom was kind of loud and made the guy next to me move down so that her friend could sit in his seat.

Ducks!

We later saw the lady at the playhouse and said hi.  The night we went was opening night, so we paid a little bit extra for the opening night gala.  Linda and I took pictures around the theatre, and a guy saw us and tried to hit on her by offering to help her get up, thinking that she had fallen down when she was kneeling to take this picture.  I love how we are the opposites of the masks that are in our pictures.

Comedy

Tragedy

We had some complimentary coffee before the show.  So nice on a chilly evening!  We could have brought drinks into the theatre, but didn't purchase any for ourselves.

Wall of Players

Our seats were in Section C, in the second row up from the floor where the stage was located, on the aisle.  The theatre is quite intimate, and it seemed that there were no bad seats in the house.  The seating surrounds the stage, so you can actually see all of the audience.  

Part of the Mousetrap Set

• The play takes place in a boardinghouse, in which all of the characters are stranded due to a snow storm.  There has been a murder in London, and none of them can trust each other.  Everyone is hiding something, including the proprietors.  All of them are suspects. 
• The actors did a great job with this play.  I especially liked Andrea Pincus, whom plays Mrs. Ralston.  She was just like any new proprietor of a business would be like: nervous and hopeful, as well as a kind person to her patrons.
• Lee Samuel Tanng also did a great job.  The only thing that jarred us, however, was that he looked like, acted like, and sounded like our friend Rudy.  It was as if he had studied Rudy for this part and just played him.  He even stole scenes like Rudy.  It was WEIRD.  I texted Rudy at intermission to ask if he knew Mr. Tanng, but he did not.  He looked him up on Google later and got all creeped out because of the similarity to him.  All the actor would need to do was grow a mustache, and he'd be Rudy's doppelganger.
• Nice special effects, especially the wind blowing through the window when they opened it.
• They used the aisles and all of the doors to exit/enter the stage, which pulled us into the play.
• We kept giggling at Parvicini pocketing everything he could.  He was wearing a lot of makeup, and at first I wondered if the cast had told him that he shouldn't wear so much.  Or was he Pagliacci?  This was part of his story, though, and no, he was not an operatic clown.
• Kathleen Pavry, who plays Mrs. Boyle, reminded me of Maggie Smith's character in Downton Abbey.
• Oops.  He said "Potter" instead of "Trotter". Well, they rhyme.
• "Three Blind Mice" is going to be creepy to me from now on.  Not that it didn't bother me before.  
• No, I did not figure out whodunnit before it was revealed.  I pretty much thought that everyone was guilty at one time or another, except for the actual murderer.  I won't tell, though!

Afterward, we were treated to champagne (or sparkling cider), as well as Bangers & Mash, cheese, fruit, and little cupcakes.  How nice!  The lady from the restaurant cut in line to get to the dessert, and then she grabbed a whole bunch.  She reminds me of somebody's crazy aunt whom everyone tries not to admit that they're related.  I might be her someday, so maybe I shouldn't judge.

The little cakes were teeny tiny, though, and we wanted real dessert, so we went to Denny's, thinking they would have pie.  They did not.  They had a caramel apple pie crisp, though, so Linda ordered that.  I had the blackberry vanilla cake with ice cream on top.  I remarked to the server that Linda's dessert actually had apples, instead of looking like the picture, which had peaches.

I would have ordered a peach crisp if it was available.

I enjoyed the play, and now I want to see Scott's play again.  

"The Mousetrap" is playing through February 13 at the Long Beach Playhouse.  Support this community theater and go!  Don't forget to eat at The Crooked Duck!