Baltimore, MD: Everyman Theatre’s Murder on the Orient Express a Seductive Spin on Agatha Christie
Christmastime in Baltimore calls for afternoons spent immersed in the city’s ever-improving cultural scene, from indie concerts in Fells Point to touring musical theatre at the Hippodrome. This year, Baltimore’s Everyman Theatre contributes to its local theatre scene an excellent take on Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, a perhaps-welcome break from more “seasonally-appropriate” onstage fare. Murder on the Orient Express,adapted by Ken Ludwig and efficiently directed by Vincent M. Lancisi, offers to its audiences an aesthetically-gorgeous voyage into snowy Europe, one populated by a cohesive ensemble of could-be murder culprits.
Murder on the Orient Expressis a classic Agatha Christie murder mystery, one helmed by famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. Poirot (played by Bruce Randolph Nelson), en route to Paris on the Orient Express, encounters a strange collective of train staff, royalty, aristocrats, and exiles – each with a peculiar connection to the unsolved murder of an American little girl, Daisy Armstrong. Tragedy inevitably strikes aboard the Orient Express, and Poirot must work quickly to uncover the killer of not only his fellow passenger, but young Daisy as well.