The scene starts off dark. It’s late at night when Mrs. Hollister arrives home to find her husband sitting at the living room table, pouring himself a drink. As Mrs. Hollister struggles to explain why she didn’t come home from her canceled church meeting, tensions rise and lies start to unravel. Before the audience can even begin to figure out the truth, she fires three gunshots and Mr. Hollister lies dead on the floor.
RB’s presentation of The Murder Room may sound dark and mysterious, but its clueless, wacky characters made it just the opposite. The performance kept the audience on the edge of their seats and laughing the entire time.
The small cast of six allowed the audience to connect with the characters and get a sense of who they really were. Senior Zeyne Guzeldereli played the role of Mr. Edgar Hollister as well as police constable, Abel Howard.
“I’ve done original comedy before and that requires me to be 5 or 6 different characters,” said Guzeldereli, “so this was a piece of cake.”
His favorite role of the two was Edgar Hollister because he was crazy and eccentric. Other characters in the show included Edgar’s ditsy daughter Susan (Stephanie Duve) and her laid back American fiancé (Dovas Lietuvninkas), Lottie Molloy, the Hollister’s sassy older housekeeper (Olivia Toriumi), the inquisitive inspector Crandall (Nathan Smith), and the devious Mavis Templeton Hollister, Edgar’s recent bride (Olivia Landa).
As the police and Mr. Hollister’s loved ones attempt to discover the truth behind his disappearance, secret identities are revealed and one discovery leads to another. The suspicion of murder flies around and ironically the Hollister home has a secret room nicknamed “The Murder Room.”
The Murder Room’s twisted plot and quick, witty dialogue kept audience members entertained and often as confused as the characters, which seemed to be the point. If it wasn’t the humorous dialogue keeping viewers amused, it was the secret contraptions and props used for the show.
Some of the clever contraptions on set included a drawer that flew open when the top of the desk was pounded, a window seat that led to “The Murder Room” and could only be opened by a very specific procedure involving the coat stand, and a picture frame on hinges that took the whole cast to operate.
A bicycle was another surprising prop that made a quick appearance in the show. Susan’s fiancé Barry rode in housekeeper Lottie Molloy on the handlebars, carefully maneuvering around furniture on the set.
“We had to practice the bike scene a lot to get it down,” said Toriumi .
With a plot that never slowed down and characters with secret identities and hidden agendas, the cast of The Murder Room put on a killer performance to say the least.
