Starting in 1883, the Orient Express was a luxury train that carried passengers between Paris and Istanbul. It was the Rolls Royce of trains. The Orient Express carried the rich and the super rich. It also carried Kings, Queens, Princes and Princesses and other assorted royalty.
On one dark and really scary night in 1934, wealthy business tycoon Sam Ratchett was murdered on it. Lucky for the train’s owners, the world’s greatest detective, Hercule Poirot, invented by Agatha Christie, the author of the book upon which the play is based, happened to be on the train and the manager of the train asked him to solve the murder. At the same time, a bad snowstorm shut down the train in the middle of the mountains. The killer could not get off it. The local police could not get on it. The Belgian sleuth Poirot, made famous by Christie, had all the time in the world to solve the murder on his own.
But could he?
That is the plot of the highly enjoyable Murder on the Orient Express play, adapted for the stage by Ken Ludwig from Christie’s book, that runs at Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn until May 14, 2023. You may have seen the movie upon which the play is based, that opened in 1974 (second version in 2017) and has been aired on television 45 million times since then.
The murder suspects on the train started lying through their wealthy teeth right away. Made up story followed made up story. It turned out that several people reportedly involved in the heinous murder of a young rich girl in America, Daisy Armstrong, five years earlier, were on the train, covering up that killing as well as this one.
Could the mercurial Poirot solve the case?
Mark Jude Sullivan and Gisela Chipe, photo by Jeremy Daniel
Paper Mill Playhouse has done a superb job of presenting the play. Director Casey Hushion gets wonderful acting from absolutely everyone in his fine cast and the people who run his costumes department, but the coupe d’état of everything is the marvelous work of scenic designer Beowulf Boritt to recreate the fabulous Orient Express train. Boritt and his team have the train moving swiftly and slowly and lit it up on the outside majestically. This train to Pris is so marvelously lit up that you could see it coming in London. It flies between the mountains of Europe as the murder and murder investigation unfold. Winners of Oscars never got the ovation from the audience that the train received several times during the play.
Writer Ludwig and director Hushion let you see detective Poirot in action a little in act one, but really get him going in an effort to solve the murder in act two, where all of his brilliance is displayed as he put together a really wild and, in the end, perfect solution to the murder.
In the first act, Ludwig and Hushion follow Agatha Christie’s lead in introducing different unusual characters and setting them in action as first bystanders to the crime and later as people who, in a way, help Poirot find the killer. Each of them is drawn out fully and they give the audience a lot of laughs along with the chills or a murder most foul. Then, fully developed, the people become part of the solution with Poirot.
Anthony Cochrane and Mark Jude Sullivan, photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade
Some of the best performances are by Anthony Cochrane as Hercule Poirot, Donna English as Princess Dragomiroff, Alex Mandell as Hector McQueen, Mark Jude Sullivan as Ratchett, Karen Ziemba as Mrs. Hubbard, and Leanne Antonio as Mary Debenham, they are in a cast of talented actors.
The beauty of the play is that you never, never, not for a moment, high up there is the snowbound train, think that the play will turn out as it does. The characters that Christie, in her 1934 book, has created, are some of the most wonderful in murder mystery history. Ludwig installs a significant amount of tension into the story, too. Why would any of these people kill Ratchett? What is their motive? Why are they all on this train anyway? Are they going to somewhere or away from the law somewhere? Why not hide in a cheap cabin? Why an expensive train?
Why is Poirot there? Why does he take the case?
What is it, anyway, that made Poirot one of literature’s great detectives?
Christie’s Poirot was such a believable, and praised, detective that when he died in one of her books many newspapers ran obituaries of him as if he was a real person, some even on their front pages.
Evan Zes, Anthony Cochrane, Gisela Chipe, photo by Jeremy Daniel
Who on the train, would Poirot name as the killer? The aging Russian Princess, Natalia Dragomiroff, Greta Ohlsson, Countess Andrenyl, Ratchett’s aide Hector McQueen, Monsieur Bouc? Or was it the mysterious “second conductor” on the train, a man whom everybody seems to have seen but whom nobody can find. Who owned that suitcase in which the “second conductor’s” uniform was found?
What about one of the people involved in the murder of little Daisy Armstrong who are, for a mysterious reason, all passengers on the train? Will Poirot, in his investigation, find the kid’s killer, too.
How can he find anybody? Lie follows lie and clues disappear. This, clearly, is going to be the detective’s toughest case. That is until he finally stumbled upon the killer in the incredible twist at the end of the play. Stay tuned.
Who then, was the best detective in the world, Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes?
Neither. All my money for the top dog here is on the brilliant, sensational Lieutenant Columbo of the Los Angeles police. And his raincoat.
Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express runs at Paper Mill Playhouse (22 Brookside Drive in Millburn, New Jersey) until May 14, 2023. For ticket information, click here.
Stephanie Gibson, Gisela Chipe, Anthony Cochrane, Donna English, Evan Zes, Graham Stevens, Karen Ziemba, photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade
