State College Community Theatre’s production of Ken Ludwig’s The Game’s Afoot, directed by Kerry Clancy-Burns, had some strengths as a production, though overall it was not the best show I’ve ever seen. There were many positive aspects—especially individual performances, most of which were excellent. But there were some technical issues that undercut the show.

To start, this is a Ken Ludwig play, and I’m just not that much of a fan of Ludwig. I’ve seen three plays by him now, I believe, and they’re serviceable comedies, but I don’t find them that engaging. Light entertainment, without a tremendous amount more. With Game’s Afoot, in particular, the play felt like it was trying incredibly hard to be sophisticated and clever, mainly through the characters—most of whom are actors—continually quoting Shakespeare. We get it, Ken, you’re a theatre guy and can quote Shakespeare. Let it go. I actually do love metatheatre, but I also feel like there’s something masturbatory about playwrights setting plays in the theatre or populating them with actors.

The plot begins with an assassination attempt on William Gillette, star of a Sherlock Holmes play he’d written and which has had a long successful run. After being shot on stage in the opening scene, William withdraws to his mansion to recover, and then we see him again as his friends are about to arrive for a party he’s throwing. Among the guests are William’s best friend and co-star Felix Geisel and his wife Maude, supporting actors Simon Bright and Aggie Wheeler, and—a surprise guest—the newspaper columnist Daria Chase, who has written uncomplimentary things about everyone at the party except William and his mother Martha.  However, after a William disrupts a séance Daria was leading, she vows to ruin him, giving everyone a potential motive for stabbing her in the back at the end of act 1. Act 2 begins with William conscripting Felix into helping him hide Daria’s body after Martha admits to the murder. With slapstick style humor, the two actors try to hide the body, but are interrupted by the arrival of Inspector Goring, who begins clumsily investigating as the two actors try to throw him off the scent. Much comedy ensues during the investigation, before eventually the whole conspiracy is revealed.

In terms of SCCT’s production, many of the individual performances were excellent. I’ve worked with both Heidi Cole (Madge Geisel) and Brandon Smith (Simon Bright) before, and they’re consistently excellent performers, able to bring big emotions and great comic timing to their roles. I haven’t worked with Jared Kehler (Felix Geisel) before, but I’ve seen him in a number of shows and he’s also excellent in everything. I’m not sure I’ve seen Quinn Dougherty (William Gillette) on stage before, but his performance was fantastic as William—his ability to give big facial expressions for comic effect, and the repeated shrieks whenever an unexpected discovery was made produced major laughs.

For as good as the individual performers were, there were some technical issues and what felt like some early jitters. Throughout the first third or so of the performance, the cast didn’t feel like there was much chemistry—like they hadn’t yet settled into their roles. This might be a function of me seeing the performance on opening night, which can be a bit rocky sometimes.

However, there were some mechanical issues that undercut the smoothness of the play. One major one was William’s hidden room. This seems to be a technical requirement of the play (though I haven’t read the script, so I’m not sure how much, if any, leeway might exist on this), but it involves a bookcase that swivels to reveal a hidden room, where William and Feliz hide Daria’s body in act 2. The bookcase did not swivel well. It looked very unstable, which was somewhat concerning. I suspect part of the problem is that the Boal Barn theatre doesn’t allow theatre companies to really anchor set pieces to the floor, which means anything that needs to move is often unstable. But the hidden room door simply didn’t look smooth. There were also concerns about the staircase, since there was a very long set of stairs, and I as an audience member was terrified they were going to collapse—and at least one of the actors said after the show that they had the same fear going up and down them.

One technical element that worked spectacularly was when Cassandra Poorman (Aggie Wheeler) smashed a vase over Brandon’s head. The vase was made of fragile resin, but when it smashed it looked exactly like a genuine glass vase breaking into a million pieces. Throughout the audience, multiple people jumped as though it were genuine glass being broken over Brandon’s head, so the effect was fantastic, exactly what it was meant to look like.