Word: sleuths
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...SLEUTH'S MOST STRIKING features, as anyone who's seen the film or the original play will tell you, are the surprising deceptions which reveal themselves every half-hour or so. Andrew Wyke, an English mystery writer (Sir Laurence Olivier), is at his Gothic estate when his wife's lover, a hairdresser named Milo Tindle (Michael Caine), arrives. Wyke proposes a shrewd plot: he will help Tindle "steal" the Wyke jewels, in order to defraud the insurance company. But that, we find, is not quite Wyke's real goal. And, a still later clever-and-bold twist tells us what...
Anthony Schaffer's Tony Award-winning play is currently Broadway's longest run. The film, with screenplay by Schaffer, has played in other cities for almost two months. So many people have seen Sleuth that a lot more people know its secrets. But the best points of the film are not the disclosures of its tricks--which may or may not deceive you--but the perceptively witty caricatures of the writer and of Inspector Doppler, the detective who makes a late night investigation at Wyke's estate...
...Though Sleuth admonishes that crime is not a game, its captivating appeal derives mainly from its middle scenes, where no facts are altogether certain and the players begin to act almost like characters from the great detective stories. Inspector Doppler's dress and speech mark him, not as a simple stereotype, but as a real detective who is cautiously aware of past mystery movies and books. The interplay between Doppler and Wyke features fine acting and psychological suspense that's effective even if you've already figured out the plot...
Only reading period gives the January theater season much appeal, but there are a few things on his weekend which are good for more than just killing time. Sleuth is wrapping up its Boston run this week, a last chance to see the theatrical original. Only whodunit literati begrudge Anthony Shaffer his many tricks, other find it delightful. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest drew many critics' sneers when it opened off-Broadway. While the dramatization might not so nearly approach the greatness of Ken Kesey's novel, it's powerful enough on its own. Godspell keeps youthquaking along...
COLONIAL THEATER. Sleuth at 7:30, mats. Thurs...