“Bang! You’re dead.” The note that started everything at the Palace Theatre. On December 4th, the TRHS Theatre Program performed the two act play, The Game’s Afoot, by Ken Ludwig. The play highlighted how an evening of a few retiring friends on Christmas Eve quickly turned dark when one of the guests, Daria Chase, was stabbed.

Daria Chase, a journalist and theatre critic, visits the main character (William Gilette’s) Connecticut mansion to interview him for an article for Vanity Fair. As a theatre critic, Daria Chase spreads many rumors about celebrities, which eventually leads to her murder. Sydney Williams, the actor of Daria’s character, describes her as a “spiteful, gossip-mongering, mean, malicious, and scandalous” woman. Overall, she is a widely hated character, eventually leading to her

Daria’s murderer isn’t the only criminal in this play, however, the puppy-loving couple Aggie and Simon are the next Bonnie and Clyde. The recently widowed Aggie Wheeler finds herself marrying a close friend, Simon Bright, after he helps her recover from the loss of her husband, Hugo, at least that’s what they tell everyone. The couple actually planned the murder of Hugo so they could get his money, making Simon look like a hero who simply stumbled upon fortune. At least this was what Aggie had thought, Simon was actually in love with another woman and intended to murder Aggie to get the money all for himself so he could enjoy it with his girlfriend.

The fan favorite, Felix Geisel, and his wife, Madge, as a dynamic duo end up figuring out the secrets of the couple and believe they solved the case. Together with William Gillette and a woman detective, the four solve the mystery. In the end, Simon and Aggie are arrested, but are all of the criminals caught? The main character’s mother, Martha Gillette, reveals at the end that she had actually stabbed Daria, getting away with the murder.

Overall, the play was quite difficult to follow, making the mystery of who actually killed Daria Chase incredibly hard to crack. What blew the audience away was the shocking cliffhanger at the end when Daria appears in the door, still alive.

Quotes from the show:

“Simon Bright’s audacity was largely in excess of his equipment.” – James Marsh as Simon Bright
“Dear little Portia, I wonder how she’d look above the mantle piece.” – Gabby Roggy as Martha Gillette
“That was yogurt.” “It was like spoiled milk with the texture of bone marrow. It’ll never catch on.” – Jules King and Nathan Lee as Madge and Felix Geisel
“I think of myself as a pioneer, heading west, fertilizing the land as I go.” – Olivia Ableman as Inspector Goring
“Husbands are a dime a dozen. They come and go like ducks around a country pond. They waddle around looking self important, they quack as though someone is actually listening to them, and then, mercifully, they die off and disappear.” – Sydney Williams as Daria Chase
“You did call me a side of beef.” – Nathan Lee as Felix Geisel
“Incidentally, that taxi Daria ordered before she died? I canceled it. I took the view that she wouldn’t need it once she was dead.” – Gabby Roggy as Martha Gillette