Mesquite Arts Theatre: DEATH BY DESIGN
The theatre filled early, and the final guests squeezed into the two seats almost in front of us. The Director, Dennis Gullion, came onto the stage with a “welcome” and words of “thanks to all attending and performing” and a brief introduction of the production, Death by Design.
Dennis is no stranger or newcomer to the Mesquite stage, is a veteran actor and director, and, “Believe me,” speaks well!
He briefly introduced the night’s fare with some profiles of actors, some information about the material, and an injunction to “Pay close attention, because you all are going to think you have the ‘murderer’ all figured out, and you will be wrong!” For the most part, he was “spot on” with his briefings! We watched closely and still were a little surprised at the end.
The cast was great and well-prepared and matched their characters aptly, and the murder mystery involved, of course, murders, double-crosses, cheatings, misplays, ghosts, kissings, knives, guns, and everything else that makes a murder mystery good— and the setting was an “outof- the-way” inn that had one guest too many and a ghost that I would have liked to have seen more!
My wife and I were sure we could figure it out, and we did, SORT OF! “Dodger” was our favorite character, and Demerest ran a close second! But, all the actors were wellrehearsed and very good speakers and “players.” Their voices carried well, and their pronunciations and intonations were easy to follow. *We thought Minnie was a good and convincing “kisser!”* As we left, Viv and I both discussed the actors and their individual ways of making the characters and actions real and understood! Sometimes, a play is good, but we are ready to move on; sometimes we feel we could “re-do” the whole evening and learn even more. This was one of those times we could probably “re-play” and see things we missed the first time.
Recommendation: Become a “season ticketholder” so that you don’t miss out on the upcoming action!
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