
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, November 19, 1993                   TAG: 9311180005
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-3   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: By STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

BETTER `TRAP'

The radio news speaks of a murder in London; the snow outside is piling high; stranded strangers gather in a boarding house. The phone is dead; soon, so is one of the boarders.

Whodunit?

The classic question of murder and suspense is acted out this weekend in "The Mousetrap," an Agatha Christie thriller played out in the University Mall theatre of Playmakers & Company.

The play is the 58th production by the 14-year-old New River Valley group of volunteer actors and actresses. Playmakers, which began the production Nov. 5 and will conclude its effort this weekend, presented "The Mousetrap" 11 years ago, too.

The suspense centers around a group of five travelers who have come to stay in the newly opened boarding house of Mollie and Giles Ralston. Caustic personality clashes soon lead to more serious conflict.

Among them walks a murderer, who has killed once and will kill again before the action ends. Suspicion, fueled by each character's idiosyncrasies, falls upon each one of them at different points in the plot.

Christie's tale, set in the years following World War II, questions people's pasts, rattles skeletons in the closet and asks how well any person can know another.

"Everybody backstage always hopes the audience thinks they're the one that did it," said Mike Vaughn, who plays Mr. Paravicini, the bearded, boisterous, guffawing mystery man who shows up unexpectedly.

"We never want to give it away," he said. In that, they succeed.

The classic murder mystery ends - with a classic twist.

The 2 1/2-hour two-act play is being performed in the Playmakers' newly renovated "little black box theater" in the mall, Vaughn said. The community production adds a down-home flavor at the intermission with brownies and cookies for sale.

Tickets cost $5 for the general public and $3 for students, and can be bought at The Weight Club, right across from the theatre inside the mall. Show times are 7:30 tonight and Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday. For more information, call 382-0154.

by CNB