On a dark and stormy night in spring 1943, a pompous mystery writer holds court at the Claythorne mansion, a will has been changed, and tempers are about to flare. In Joe DiPietro’s An Old-Fashioned Family Murder, Colonel Claythorne’s elderly family gathers around author Arthur Whittington, and by the time a young detective arrives, a murder has occurred, and everyone is a suspect. The one person who sees the situation clearly is a visiting widow, Mrs. Peck, whose mother-knows-best advice complicates the investigation.
Vienna Theatre Company’s production, directed by Katie Boone, is a pleasant evening with a lot going for it. Boone pulls the show’s elements together to fit the play and its period, and her staging is a strength. Sightlines are good, and the stage pictures are nicely composed, so the audience always knows where to look. The evening begins with a funny welcome speech from Shelby Kaplan, who also voices the radio announcer heard during the play. The show also opens with a very effective tableau at the top, setting the scene and drawing the audience in before the first line of the play proper. The cast is plainly committed to its characters and to the story, and the design work is a pleasure to look at. Michelle Lukacs’s set painting is fantastic, with a wall treatment and a portrait of Colonel Claythorne that establish the mansion before anyone speaks. Juliana Cofrancesco and Farrell Hartigan’s costumes are spot-on for the period, and Ari McSherry’s lighting effectively supports the mood and the storm.
Myer Kim’s sound design is well conceived but uneven in execution. A rainstorm underscores the entire show and sets the scene, but at times it makes the actors hard to hear, most noticeably at the top of Act Two. The effect also cut off abruptly throughout, only to begin again, which suggests the loop needs editing. When the storm finally stopped at the end of the play, it didn’t fade but simply cut out. After two hours of listening to rain, the silence was startling.
Among the performers, Michelle Kritzler as Mrs. Peck finds her character and plays a powerful lead. It is a pleasure to watch her nonverbal acting moments as she works out the murders before anyone else. Her delivery, however, leaves many of her lines feeling so rehearsed that she seems to be waiting for her cue rather than listening and reacting to what her scene partner has just said. The lines lacked freshness and genuine reaction, and the performance would be stronger with more real-time processing.
Ansley Sherwin gives a standout performance as Clarice, the cold and glamorous elder daughter. Her characterization is top-notch, and she brings a fully fleshed-out, dynamic presence to the stage. Charlie Boone is a big presence as Whittington, making large physical choices that suit the role, and he is effective at pushing the plot forward. At times, his dialogue seemed directed to the audience instead of the actors onstage with him. Taveion Mickens is a tremendous physical comedian as Jasper, with great timing, and his stakes-raising moments that establish Jasper is absolutely not a pool boy are hilarious. He was hard to understand at times, but he had moments of brilliant delivery.
Samantha Mitchell’s Dotty is a bit one-dimensional for much of the play, but that may be more a writing issue than a performance one, and Mitchell is remarkably consistent in her vocal and physical choices. It was nice to see another side of Dotty toward the end, when she has a big reveal, and I wished the script had given the character more opportunities for dimension and change along the way. She was also hard to understand in parts of the play due to the vocal register and pace her character operated in. Eddie Perez-Reyes has great characterization as Detective Peck, the only character onstage with a clear objective, and he sells it. He, too, was sometimes hard to understand, though, and I wished he and Kritzler had made more eye contact with their scene partners.
The dialects are the other recurring issue. The accents are meant to read as American (as the play is set in New England), but some land as “British-ish,” with an American sound creeping in and some inconsistency, particularly from Whittington and Jasper. The accents are never so far off that they derail a scene, but they do pull attention away from it.
As for the ensemble, the performers are fine individually, but the play as a whole lacks the connection a mystery like this needs. The cast never settles into a rhythm or heightens the story when it should, and too often the actors don’t appear to be listening to one another. The sense of danger is oddly missing. At one point, a scream is heard offstage, and there is little reaction from the characters onstage. For a group of people in a mansion in the middle of the night with a killer among them, most of the cast remained composed and calm. I’m not sure whether that was a directorial choice, but it takes air out of the stakes, and I wished I could see the characters who had no part in the crime behave as if one of them might be next. More of that tension would have made the production feel more cohesive.
Still, An Old-Fashioned Family Murder is an enjoyable night out. The compelling design, the polished staging, and the cast’s commitment give Vienna Theatre Company’s production real charm, and with a stronger sense of ensemble and urgency, it could be a much sharper whodunit.
Running Time: Approximately two hours, including a 15-minute intermission.
An Old-Fashioned Family Murder plays through November 1, 2026, presented by Vienna Theatre Company, performing at the Vienna Community Center, 120 Cherry Street SE, Vienna, VA. Purchase tickets ($18) online or at the door.
An Old-Fashioned Family Murder
By Joe DiPietro
Directed by Katie Boone
CAST
Dotty Claythorne played by Samantha Mitchell
Clarice Claythorne played by Ansley Sherwin
Mrs. Shirley Peck played by Michelle Kritzler
Detective Paul Peck played by Eddie Perez
Arthur Whittington played by Charlie Boone
Jasper Jamison played by Taveion Mickens
