By Elisabeth Burnor ‘14

Photo by Steven Tringali ‘13 |The Lafayette

When I began seeing posters for the Marquis Players’ production of “Curtains!” floating around campus, I was skeptical.

A “murder mystery musical comedy”? I like overly conspicuous alliterations as much as any writer, but the advertisement left me wondering what I was getting into as I sat Friday night to watch the performance.

I was pleasantly surprised—the performance lived up to its poster’s claim. “Curtains!” is not just a musical comedy about a murder. It is a musical about a musical being crushed by bad reviews while members of the cast, crew, and production team are targeted and murdered, all while a bumbling detective lives out his dream of being in show business.

Two people fall in love, two other people rekindle a past romance, and an unusual mother-daughter relationship unfolds. It was your usual huge, over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek musical. The Marquis Players took on an enormous production when they chose “Curtains!”

The members of the cast played their roles with the liveliness and energy required of a large musical production. The Marquis Players took the absurdity of the musical’s script to heart and attempted to translate it into big, loud singing and dancing numbers, comic and dramatic dialogue, cliched love stories, and, of course, a bunch of on-stage murders.

They succeeded.

Dan Kim ‘13 played his role of a stereotypically insane show director with so much delight that it was fun just to watch him. Brandi Porter ‘13, Caroline Fay ‘16, and Christine Calella ‘16 all showcased their impressive vocals. Kristin Curley ‘16 and Danny Guadalupe ‘16 as Bambi and Bobby pulled off a few extremely technical dance numbers.

Joe Rothschild ‘16 came close to stealing the show as Lieutenant Cioffi—the bumbling detective with a flare for show business. He delivered his role with such character that, by the end of the play, I started to laugh before he even opened his mouth.

I would have liked to see members of the chorus given more of a chance to perform in this show. There were a few chorus members who were consistently placed near the back, and I rarely saw their faces. The cast just seemed too big, and there was not enough room onstage for everyone.

However, the chorus’ singing was the strongest I have ever heard in a production at Lafayette, and they pulled off the choreographed dances on that tiny stage extremely well.

The crew clearly worked hard to get this production to run smoothly from beginning to end, and there were not any noticeable hitches. The pit band did what pit bands do best—skillfully performing all of the music while remaining inconspicuous under the stage, apart from a short onstage performance from conductor Alex Cutrone ‘13, who played Sasha, the play-in-a-play’s conductor.

I spent most of this show laughing at the comic absurdity of a cast continuing to rehearse and prepare for a performance while a known killer wanders around the locked-down theater, looking for his next target, and while the detective—who is supposed to be tracking the killer—helps compose, choreograph, and direct the musical.

I just wish that the killer had ended up being someone less obvious than the evil reviewer from The Boston Globe.