Actress Heather Roach turns in a harrowing performance as a cunning wife of an accused murderer
By Russ Tarby
Contributing Writer
A wealthy widow has been murdered. Her young gentleman caller, Leonard Vole, fears arrest so he engages the services of a renowned defense attorney, Wilfrid Robarts. Vole’s alibi relies on his foreign-born wife, Romaine.
Will she vouch for him?
Ah, there’s the rub! And it’s the crux of the labyrinthine plot woven so tightly by the incomparable British mystery writer Agatha Christie.
First performed in London back in 1953, “Witness for the Prosecution” as presented this month by CNY Playhouse has been relocated to New York state and updated to 1986. A photo hanging on Robarts’ office wall shows the lawyer (played by the white-haired and mustachioed Joe Pierce) meeting with President Ronald Reagan. Prosecutor Myers is a woman (the ravishing and resolute Lauren Puente), and the judge is a black man (the venerable Al Marshall.) Even the defendant’s bloody Adidas sweatshirt is an icon of the Eighties.
The action takes place on a two-tiered geometric set bathed in institutional blue designed by Navroz Dabu. Ah, the action! If only it had more action!
Actor Daryl Acevedo portrays Vole as an eye-rolling, greasy-haired chatterbox, devoid of the con-man cunning that underpins the role. Vole’s a slick grifter, but Acevedo fails to get that across to the audience until the truth outs late in Act 2.
In Act 1, as Vole and Robarts sit and sit and sit while the lawyer endlessly interviews the murder suspect, important information about who will inherit French’s fortune, for instance, becomes all but lost in the tedium.
The ennui explodes, however, upon the entrance of Vole’s wife, Romaine, played by Heather Roach, who quickly recaptures the audience’s attention. Delivering her lines in a thick yet entirely intelligible German accent, Roach ably creates a character with an icy demeanor and a cynical sense of sarcasm.
As the opposing attorneys, Pierce’s defender is more affable and human than most portrayals while Puente’s prosecutor takes haughty to new heights, complete with timely scowls and snarls. Puente also has great eyes, and she uses them effectively.
Although directed by the award-winning Sharee Lemos Pierce (wife of the leading man), this production unfortunately lacks proper pacing. All too often it moves far too slowly, sometimes crawling to a near-stop.
But Roach’s carefully understated performance of Romaine is nothing short of mesmerizing as she embodies the aging woman scorned. And the competition between Robarts and Myers is well-developed by Pierce and Puente.
The cast of 16 also features Melanie Kiehl, Rich Bocek, Jon Wilson, Bernie Ment, Michael Lehmann, Sheirel Mordaunt, Phil Brady, Bruce Coville, Denise Ballou and the fetching Alicia Cobb.
The aptly named Glenda House is perfect as the eccentric housekeeper, who testifies in a staccato brogue that she overheard Emily French conversing with Vole in the minutes before she was bludgeoned to death.
This “Witness” boasts one of the oddest curtain calls you’ll ever see as the entire cast re-assembles in the courtroom to create a sort of frozen tableau. When in doubt, applaud.
“Witness for the Prosecution” produced by Kasey McHale, runs at 8 p.m. Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday Sept. 22, 23, 24 and 25, and Sept. 29, 30 and Oct. 1, at CNY Playhouse located near the Macy’s entrance at DeWitt’s Shoppingtown Mall; Tickets cost $17 on Thursday and Sunday, and $22 on Friday and Saturday; 885-8960; cnyplayhouse.com.