Lakewood's 'Santa' should have stayed at North Pole

peoples

By Emerson Batdorff Agatha Christie caused much trouble for the English-speaking peoples when, more than 21 years ago, she wrote "The Mousetrap," which has been running in London ever since.

Not only does this mannered, labored little play attract many people (many to their subsequent puzzlement about why it ran 21 days, let alone 21 years), it also inspires imitators.

A great many British writers, confronted with a need for money, figured they would write a stylish murder mystery in the manner of "The Moustrap." Most of these never made it to the United States, but "Who Killed Santa Claus?" by Terence Feely got to Lakewood Little Theater.

The play is one of those complicated murder mysteries that is cleared up, as far as it is cleared up at all, in the last few minutes of

intense conversation at in determining that the

gunpoint.

Some of the lines are sharp but most just trudge along like soldiers.

A play like this, being cut to a pattern, relies for its life on its characters. Alas, in "Who Killed Santa Claus?” the characters also are cut to a pattern: the witchy TV star, the mean loudmouthed director, the ostensibly nice but crooked producer, the urbane, intelligent police superintendent, the overt homosexual makeup man and so forth.

The question is, why did someone threaten the life of British TV star Barbara Love, and will he actually throttle her till her face turns purple, as he has promised?

Director Hank Czekalinski moves his people around as well as can be expected for so talky a play, but he or someone in authority has erred greatly

lines shall be rendered in what passes for a British accent.

There are many versions of this, some fair, some bad and some downright unintelligible. Sometimes the

'Who Killed Santa Claus?' Lakewood Little Theater

By Terence Feely. Directed by Hank Czekalinski. Setting by Russ Rissman. Lighting by Andrew Kosiorek. To be given through Jan. 26. B............ Jacquelyn Engle

Connie Bell

Jack Campbell Barnes... Bud Binns

Barbara Love......................... Nancy DeCapua Christopher Moore...... Paul Reston.

Ray Lacey.. Dave Ogden.

Bruce Wacker ....... Ralph Czekalinski

Reed Trask Tom Slowey David Traeger

words make no more sense than the birds twittering in

the trees.

While everyone is trying to talk British, most of them are drinking Ameriice. The British use very can; that is, they use lots of little ice in their drinks. I suspect that in one performance of Lakewood Little Theater's "Who Killed Santa Claus?" more ice is consumed than is used during a whole evening's operation of the White Hart, a splendid pub in Chichester, England, that can harbor up to 45 people.

The point is, why talk British if you are going to drink American? Why not just try for intelligibility on stage?

Performances range from uncomfortable to almost ingratiating. I liked Bruce Wacker's police superintendent quite a lot, perhaps because he was usually intelligible, and for some reason I enjoyed Jacquelyn Engle's dedicated secretary even though she was not.

Nancy DeCapua is properly snarly as the self-satisfied TV star. She also has one of the most interesting loud screams in the business. The average loud scream is nothing to write home about. Hers is.

"The set by Russ Rissman has a lot less British in it than the accents of the cast, yet it is a lot more servicable and attractive.