Two Dunnit: Too Much Participation Can Be Killer

Two Dunnit – The Space @ Surgeon’s Hall

As a fan of murder mysteries and interactive shows, I was sold from the word go. Two Dunnit is an Agatha Christie inspired two-actor “scriptprov” murder mystery by Robert Eyers and Louisa Keight. The show begins as we learn of the mysterious death of Dr. Black, one of three doctors in a small European town. The two detectives start digging into the case and are met by many odd fellows that preside in the small provincial town. Robert and Louisa play all the parts. Although some of the characters are very successful, Dr. Bird and the bourgeois couple who own the apple orchard and banana swamp, most characters are not entirely realized and are extremely thin. Robert and Louisa felt timid and nervous in their various performances, never fully commanding the space. The production felt under rehearsed which disengaged me as a willing participatory audience member.

However, the show is rife with interaction. Robert and Louisa utilize the audience in various ways: handing them props, giving them dialogue. Me? I was tasked with creating an artisan sandwich with nothing but white bread and mint and was given the secret ending to look at, or not. The most successful interaction was the full audience crime board with string cascading across the crowd, providing us a recap of what we had discovered so far, which was extremely helpful as it was hard to follow all of the characters that we had been introduced to (some that we never appeared on stage). I found it tasking to keep up with what was happening beyond the audience interaction because of the audience interaction pulling focus from an already timid Robert and Louisa. The participation in most cases was superfluous to the plot and had audience members awkwardly building makeshift cabinets and whiteboard masterpieces while scenes happened around them, not with them. The biggest problem with this is the fact that you could have taken most of these interactions out and the show would have been the same. Participation in theatre should always enhance the narrative, not be a way to spice up an otherwise unoriginal story.

The plot follows the classic murder mystery switcharoo, so I figured out who had committed the crime well before the end (or maybe it was due to my super human powers of deduction, my dear Watson), but let's go back to that piece of paper I was handed at the beginning. Cue the Clue music as we run back to the billiard room! (sounds of vaudevillian piano can be heard)

Now...I was told, in the beginning of the show, that I may look at my oh so secret slip of paper that revealed to me who the killer was, or not, it was up to me…so I chose not, so that I may enjoy the discoveries along with the rest of the audience, but when the killer had been announced…I looked at my paper to see what it contained. It was not the same as who turned out to be the murderer. So, of course, I was confused. Was this on purpose? Playing on people’s needs to know answers without putting in the work to discover them; therefore confusing that audience member through the process because they already think they know the killer? My Spidey senses are telling me yes, so I'm not sure if that particular audience engagement works, as it fails if an audience member shows restraint.

The show could be something interesting if given a little more time to be realized; for me, the script should be the star, even if it's "scriptprov" the structure should be sound with a command of the content. But, right now it’s unfortunately playing second fiddle to the participatory aspects of the show that do nothing to strengthen the piece. Work needs to be done to ensure the narrative holds up beyond the use of gimmicks.

TWO STARS