Any Boddy Wanna Play

 

Any Boddy Wanna Play

Friday evening I had a very pleasant time. I was able to attend my granddaughter Hannah Yoder’s high school play. It was a presentation of a plot written on the basic guidelines of the Clue Game. The concept of the game was to figure out which character committed a murder, where it occurred, and what was the weapon that was used. The weapons for a character to choose from were a revolver, a wrench, a lead pipe, a rope, a candlestick, and a dagger. The room choices in the Boddy Mansion included the hall, the lounge, the dining room, the kitchen, the ballroom, the conservatory, the billiard room, the library, and the study. Finally there was the cast of characters, Mrs. Peacock, Colonel Mustard, Miss Scarlet, Mrs White, Mr. Green, the butler, Yvette, and Mr. Boddy himself. There waas another host of other minor players to expand the actors to fill the stage with other caretaking jobs.

The stage props were limited to six labeled doors and the wide double doors to the mansion’s entrance. By shuffling the different doors and with a minimum of other items, the stage was set for the players to weave the mystery of who-done-it and where, when, and what weapon was used.

My granddaughter Hannah played the part of a plump German cook who was the first to die. She fell onto the stage with a dagger protruding from her back. Initially introduced, she stepped into the play banging a loud gong and announcing that “Dinner vas being serffed.” She made her rounds ladling soup ito the characters gathered around the dining table. The audience was fed more information about each actor as they ate. Hannah appeared in several other scenes, limp but staying dead as the various actors tried to disguise her “lifeless” form.

The mystery deepened as a rain storm roared in the background. It washed out the bridge to the mansion trapping these “innocent’ people inside the Boddy mansion with a murderer. The interplay of characters, while sorting out the guilty party, was filled with comedic lines. The dialogue and actions slowly revealed the reasons as to why these people were chosen to be brought to the mansion. The web that was being spun to hide their guilt was the binding theme of the plot to circle tighter and tighter until their individual sins were revealed.