By Bruce Chadwick
originally published: 05/19/2024
The cast of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder. Photo by Avery Brunkus
No, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder is not a play about the heyday of killings in the U.S. by Al Capone, John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson or any other notorious U.S. 1930s gangster. It is a play by Robert Freedman about an unusual set of murders connected to the disinheritance of a mom from a wealthy family in good olde London, England, in the early part of the twentieth century and what happens to her very, very angry son, and just about anybody he comes in contact with.
You see, the son, Monty Navarro, is unhappy that the D’Ysquith family has given his dear old mom the financial boot and left her and him penniless. So, to get even, he decides to murder a whole bunch of them. A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder is a light musical about his bloody quest. The musical is now running at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, Drew University, Madison, and if you are sitting in the audience, it is ‘Pick You Own Murder’ game- sort of a bloody ‘Price is Right.”
The story is a bright little musical that shows you the different ways to kill people (if you have anyone in mind). The musical is bright and cheerful and at times the play is quite funny, unlike the story the title suggests. It has some charming moments, such as the scene in which a half a dozen characters put their faces into picture frames and sing away. There is also real charm in the tiny orchestra, which is mounted so high up on the stage that passengers in an airplane flying overhead could wave to them. There are numerous funny bits tied to the murders. The play almost makes killing somebody, well, cheerful. Director Brian B. Crowe has done a fine job of finding and showcasing the humorous spots in the play.
Miles Jacoby as Montague “Monty” Navarro and Claire Leyden as Sibella Hallward. Photo by Avery Brunkus.
If you need a guidebook on how to murder people, this is it.
Director Crouse gets fine work from actors Miles Jacoby as Monty Navarro, Javiar Alfonso Castellanos as Chief Inspector Pinckney and others. The play, based on a novel by Roy Horniman, has music and lyrics by Freedman and Steven Lutvak.
Christopher Sutton as Lady Hyacinth D’Ysquith, Miles Jacoby as Montague “Monty” Navarro, and the cast of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder. Photo by Avery Brunkus.
There are problems in the play. First, it runs two and a half hours (I know, you need a lot of time to kill a lot of people) which is just too long. You could kill the entire population of England in that amount of time. Director Crouse could have trimmed a good twenty minutes off the script. Second, the story just does not seem to go anywhere. The murder plots take off but do not really hit any targets. The actors do a fine job pf playing different people, especially the women – very colorful - but the play is muddled. I think a play about murder needs to be more somber than this one. The songs, too, are too friendly for bloodshed. The colors in the backdrops are odd, too, roaring from dangerous dark to very very light, some of the walls you’d see at an indoor girl scout picnic.
Miles Jacoby as Montague “Monty” Navarro, Christopher Sutton as Lord Adalbert D’Ysquith, Eryn LeCroy as Phoebe D’Ysquith, and the cast of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder. Photo by Avery Brunkus.
The play rolls along just fine, has numerous funny moments, some outrageously good performances. The men in the play do a fine job with terribly low key characters. Oddy, many of the actors in the play are quite tall (was this a Knicks practice)?
If you want to study murder, go see this play. But it is, murder low, low boil on the theatrical stove with a lot of uncooked food on the dinner table.
A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder plays at Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey now through June 9, 2024. For more information or to purchase tickets, click here.
Christopher Sutton as Lord Adalbert D’Ysquith. Photo by Avery Brunkus.
About the author:
Bruce Chadwick worked for 23 years as an entertainment writer/critic for the New York Daily News. Later, he served as the arts and entertainment critic for the History News Network, a national online weekly magazine. Chadwick holds a Ph. D in History and Cultural Studies from Rutgers University. He has written 31 books on U.S. history and has lectured on history and culture around the world. He is a history professor at New Jersey City University.
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