Lakewood Playhouse has hit a long ball with its first time at bat this season. The community theater’s staging of Agatha Chirstie’s “The Hollow” simply was entertaining from first line to curtain call.



I have to admit that I wasn’t particularly looking forward to seeing the show since I had seen the show a decade or so ago and am not often in the mood for seeing shows — especially mysteries — that I have already seen. Life is too short to watch whodunits more than once even if they are separated by a president or two. I remember the show since my counterpart at another newspaper spilled his ink about how the phone ring wasn’t authentic for mid-century England and how that had ruined the play for him.

Anyway, this show was almost unrecognizable from the show I remember from those bygone days.



Director John Munn staged the show in the round, which is customary at Lakewood, but he took that directive to heart and used the space effectively so that all sides of the stage could see ample traffic. I try to shuffle seats at intermission during such shows just to test how effective the staging is. While there are times when one or two actors have their backs to at least one side of the audience, there are enough times when the action is center stage that visibility is not an issue.



The whole effect makes the audience members truly feel like flies on the wall as the action plays out in front of them. Sometimes they overhear conversations on the other side of the room while other times they are eavesdropping on confessions just inches away from their seats. 



The staging, courtesy of Erin Chanfrau, is simple and workable. The single-set play is set in an English manor sitting room with a wet bar, common table, a writing desk, and a sofa. It could easily become tired as the play moves on, but what makes the setting work is a piece of furniture that isn’t even there. See, much of the talk surrounds a nearby family estate. While the actors talk, they change their gaze to a portrait of the estate hanging on stage right as if audience members were not there. This imaginary landscape of their almost mystical estate sends eyes from all around the stage to this picture that isn’t even there every time an actor glances in its direction.



As for the acting, the roster of solid work mimics the playbill. Everyone does well in this show, which includes some of the most noted acting veterans to be had in these parts.

There is Michael Dresdner as the butler and Mike Slease as the inspector; both have stage credits that have to run several pages by now.



Annie Coleman plays the role of the Hollywood starlet with the mind of a vixen. She has returned from a sojourn to Los Angeles and a gig with DreamWorks to her hometown. She has a gaggle of South Sound theater credits to her resume.  The scene stealer of the play is certainly Syra Beth Puett, who plays Lady Angkatell. Her scatterbrained antics are not only amazingly funny but still relatively believable since all she would have to do to study such nonlinear babble is attend a family function at compound Dunkelberger.



“The Hollow” runs at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday through Sept. 30. Tickets are $20 general admission, $17 senior and military, and $14 age 25 and under. There will be one pay-what-you-can performance on Thursday, Sept. 13, at 8 p.m. Lakewood Playhouse is located at 5729 Lakewood Towne Center Blvd., next to the Pierce Transit Center in the heart of the Lakewood Towne Center. For reservations and tickets, call 253.588.0042 or visit www.lakewoodplayhouse.org.