The Unexpected Guest By Agatha Christie, Ottawa Little Theatre. Directed by Alain Chamsi

The script of The Unexpected Guest is almost as dead as the body on stage for most of the first act.

The 60-year-old whodunit by Agatha Christie has many of the usual ingredients: a dark and stormy night; a limited number of suspects; several apparent reasons for killing the very nasty victim; a little intrigue; one surprise and a smattering of sex.

The other ingredient is the extreme wordiness of the script, as various combinations of two of the characters spell out the puzzle. On paper, The Unexpected Guest might seem an interesting jigsaw. On stage, it limps along, despite Ottawa Little Theatre’s attempt to deliver a solid tribute to Christie as a playwright. The problem is The Unexpected Guest is no Witness for the Prosecution or Mousetrap (still continuing its legendary run in London’s West End). …

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The Unexpected Guest by Agatha Christie, Ottawa Little Theatre, directed by Alain Chamsi

There’s no denying that Agatha Christie brings off a  stunning surprise at the very end of The Unexpected Guest.

It’s a pity, therefore, that elsewhere the play is often bogged down  in verbosity.

The current Ottawa Little Theatre production is sustained by some solid performances, but the fact remains that this 1958 thriller, the last to achieve box-office success for its author, seems excessively wordy. It also strains the credulity of even the most avid Christie admirer. …

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A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, Directed by Sarah Hearn. OLTplays to April 7

In some ways, A Streetcar Named Desire is more of a minefield than it was when playwright Tennessee Williams unveiled it to the world 71 years ago.

Back then it jolted audiences wth its sexual candour and revelation of unsettling undercurrents in the way human beings treat each other. But today, we may be uncomfortably conscious that the play also seems to be telling us to be more accepting of the relationship between Stanley Kowalski and pregnant wife Stella — a relationship prone to outbursts of domestic violence. …

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Photo Maria Vartanova

An Inspector Calls By J.B. Priestley ,  directed by Jim McNabb

J.B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls is such a well-crafted play that it can even survive the ill-conceived treatment meted out to it by Ottawa Little Theatre.

So even though OLT’s current production rarely meets the script’s full potential, there are still some effective moments as a mysterious police inspector  named Goole descends on a well-to-do upper-middle-class household and proceeds to tear its complacencies asunder with his questions about the suicide of a young woman in this North Midlands town.

And there is no denying that the play’s climax, and the eerie conundrum it poses, can administer a satisfying jolt, even in a hit-and-miss offering like this one. At its best, An Inspector Calls displays its credentials as a classic 20^th Century stage thriller by a master dramatist. But J.B. Priestley was also a dramatist with a conscience. It’s no accident that he sets this play in 1912, two years before the outbreak of war, a time when the smug certainties of Edwardian England were yielding to the first signs of fracture in the social order. …

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