Even with those paragons of sophistication, Claudette Colbert and Jean-Pierre Aumont, in the starring roles, the mystery-comedy “A Talent for Murder” was able to last only three months on Broadway in 1981.
Weak in comedy and almost devoid of mystery, the play, by the Hollywood veterans Jerome Chodorov and Norman Panama, had little more to offer than the chance to see Colbert plying her charms as a wealthy, best-selling author of mysteries confined to a wheelchair and beset with greedy relatives.
At Drury Lane Theatre, where the show is mysteriously in revival, the role of Anne Royce McClain, the author, is taken by Sharon Carlson, and her physician lover is portrayed by Dale Benson.
They’re not at all like Colbert or Aumont, but they have their charms, too. Carlson barrels through the holes in the plot with unabashed gusto, gleefully swilling her brandy and smoking her cigars, while Benson, as her faithful lover in waiting, puts a droll spin on all the put-downs he aims at her avaricious children.
The confused, rush action of the play takes place in the wood-paneled library-study (nicely designed for Drury Lane’s in-the-round stage by Pamela L. LaBrosse) of McClain’s lavish Twelve Oaks estate. Here, surrounded by Impressionist masterpieces and a control panel of electronic gadgets and TV monitors, Carlson tries to cope with her relations.
These include her brain-damaged grandchild (Siobhan Sullivan), a 25-year-old with a 15-year-old mind and “the needs of a woman”; her son (Donald Brearley), desperate for money to keep the magazine he edits afloat; his two-timing wife (Jan Nisbet), who wants to cart her mother-in-law off to the funny farm and sell all her paintings, and a handsome, abusive playboy louse (Richard Marlatt) who’s the blackest of the black sheep.
There’s a murder, of course, quickly done, sloppily plotted, and blithely explained; and there’s a surprise murderer, who isn’t much of a surprise after all.
One actor who tries his darndest to make things amusing is Scott Calcagno as Carlson’s comic East Indian butler-bodyguard-chauffeur, an ex-convict quick to come up with indecipherable philosophical sayings.
Mincing about in quick step and affecting a cutesy-pooh accent, he succeeds in stealing the show.
In future roles, however, he and director David Mink might do well to remember that stealing, especially in this blatant manner, is a crime.
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“A Talent for Murder”
When: Through Oct. 19
Where: Drury Lane Theatre, 2500 W. 95th St., Evergreen Park
Phone: 708-422-0404
