McCarter Theatre presents Ken Ludwig's 'Murder on the Orient Express'

For further proof, the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, New Jersey, a major regional theater that often produces important new American plays, premieres Christie's popular 1934 Hercule Poirot novel Murder on the Orient Express, adapted by Ken Ludwig, author of Lend Me a Tenor and Moon Over Buffalo. It's a frivolous exercise, however, and not only because of Sidney Lumet’s well-regarded 1974 film.

Money on stage

Artistic director Emily Mann pours considerable resources into Murder, including an accomplished 11-actor cast, Beowulf Boritt's shiny set -- the first-class cars of a freaking train! -- and William Ivey Long's sumptuous period costumes. The story's hardly ideal for the stage, but this stagecraft is impressive. Train cars move convincingly, helped by curtaining that isolates single cars and, sometimes, small compartments. That same innovation often squeezes actors into tiny spaces on McCarter's big stage, since the train cars are small and the individual cabins even smaller. But it all fits the period and gleams in Ken Billington's expert lighting.

Ludwig's lean yet jokey script (barely two hours with an intermission) quickly puts famous detective Poirot, played drolly by Allan Corduner, in Istanbul, where old friend Bouc (Evan Zes) arranges his ride on the famous train. A typically Christie assortment of eccentric personalities -- "like looking at a painting by Pablo Picasso," Poirot says of them later -- boards.

A familiar pattern

All make the most of their defining moments, especially the boorish Americans. Max von Essen plays a pushy businessman, with Juah Sorola as his flustered secretary, and Julie Halston is an oft-married Midwestern society woman. Susannah Hoffman plays Mary, a Brit having an illicit affair with Scot Col. Arbuthnot, also played by von Essen. Curt Russian Princess Dragomiroff (Veanne Cox) travels with meek Swedish nun Greta (Samantha Steinmetz). Beautiful Bulgarian Countess Andrenyi (Alexandra Silber) charms Poirot. It's great character-actor fun. They all have distinctive accents, quirky idiosyncrasies, and layers of lies. Even the conductor (Maboud Ebrahimzadeh, last year's Barrymore Award winner for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Play for Theatre Exile's The Invisible Hand) is a suspect because, of course, a murder occurs.

The train is an ideal murder-mystery setting: it's isolated, particularly during a treacherous trip through snowy mountains. Phones break down, the train gets stuck, no one can enter or exit. All are strangers. No one can be trusted. Who will die next?

Poirot interviews all the first-class passengers and examining evidence. Eventually, he calls the whole gaggle of suspects into the dining car -- a tight fit -- and, in ritualistic fashion, reveals the killer. It's great fun, though Poirot references much more information than the script introduces. The solution is, naturally, a surprise -- I was glad I had never read the book or seen the movie -- and it has unexpected power and relevance, raising questions about the nature of justice. "I cannot turn my back on the law," Poirot insists, but the law seems inadequate. "I wonder if this was justice," he muses in his final remarks to us (he also provides background narration early on).

Mann manages all this capably, and it's undeniably well crafted. But this Murder on the Orient Express feels more like a film than a play, particularly one based on a novel. It's quick and tidy but also dumbed down, like a musical comedy minus the songs. The play's biggest scene, the inevitable reveal, is underscored with intrusive movie music, as if Mann didn't trust the play's climax -- or us.