I know I am dating myself here, but the first play I saw that had a strong mystery element to it was Sleuth, during its first round on Broadway. It was in the year 19— (what, you think I am going to say?). It also was my first experience with Broadway and my first visit to New York City. Sleuth was an epiphany for me—allowing me to see that deft plotting and subtle clues could be translated to the stage. (At least that is what I believe I thought; I was pretty young at the time.) What Sleuth did was give me a lifelong respect for good mystery plays. Frankly, there are not a lot out there but the ones that succeed work well. (For the record, the musical Curtains worked; Agatha Christie’s long-running The Mousetrap does not.) So it was with much skepticism and a bit of apprehension that I attended a recent performance of Jeffrey Hatcher’s Murderers, at the nationally known Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, Florida. Hatcher’s (Tuesdays With Morrie) Murderers is a sly trilogy about three people who never expected to become killers, but did. Murderers is set in a fictitious Sarasota retirement community, but the play can be appreciated no matter where you live. The three “murderers” are a 50something man who marries his girlfriend’s mother so the younger couple can avoid estate tax; a woman whose husband’s old love moves into their retirement community; and a manager at the retirement community who hates the way some of the residents are treated. The three characters’ monologues are witty, reminiscent of the kind of tongue in cheek work that Donna Andrews, Elaine Viets, Jeffrey Cohen and Harley Jane Kozak write. The Asolo’s actors are first-class, and the play hinges on professional actors. Lesser talents would not get the nuances of Murderers. Mystery fans would find much to like in Murderers. If it is done in a regional theater near you, I would love to hear your comments. While I am not a theater critic, I am married to one who is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association, whose recent conference was in Sarasota, Florida. The conference is a wonderful excuse to sample an area’s best theater; in the past the conference has been held at Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Francisco and Chicago, among other locales.

PHOTOS: Bryan Torfeh, top, Mercedes Herrero, bottom, in Murderers; Courtesy Asolo

This article was originally published on the Mystery Scene Blog, May 2009.