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The Real Inspector Hound | July 30 – August 21

By Tom Stoppard Directed by Matthew Arbour

Feuding theatre critics Birdboot and Moon, the first a fusty philanderer and the second a pompous and vindictive second stringer, are swept into the whodunit they are reviewing. As mists rise about isolated Muldoon Manor, Moon and Birdboot become dangerously implicated in the lethal activities of an escaped madman.

Production Team

Arbour_Matthew_web Matthew Arbour** Director Bilodeau_Dan_web Dan Bilodeau Set Designer Coleman_Grier_web Grier Coleman*** Costume Designer Jones_Stephen_web Stephen Jones*** Lighting Designer
tippin_rew_webRew Tippin Sound Designer Meyers_jeff_web Jeff Meyers* Stage Manager melissaMelissa Nathan* Asst. Stage Manager

Cast

VanHorn_Bill_web Bill Van Horn* Birdboot Coughtry_Jordan_webJordan Coughtry* Simon Gascoyne cartier_mark_web Mark S. Cartier* Moon Stevens_Janis_webJanis Stevens* Mrs. Drudge
Sturgis_Nisi_webNisi Sturgis* Cynthia Muldoon Thomas_MichaelDix_web Michael Dix Thomas Major Magnus Muldoon Blaustein_Andy_webAndy Blaustein Inspector Hound doyle_anna_web Anna Doyle Felicity Cunningham
Estes_Alan_webAlan Estes Dead Body

equity *Member of Actor’s Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers in the United States.   directors ** Member of Stage Director and Choreographer’s Society, a national theatrical labor union.   scenicartists *** Member of United Scenic Artists, the union of professional theatrical designers in the United States.

 

The Real Inspector Hound Press Release

Reviews
TAM’s Sherlock Holmes spoof is hilarious
Box-seat banter: Theater at Monmouth delivers delightful play-within-a-play The Real Inspector Hound

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More pictures from The Real Inspector Hound

From the Director

Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.

In 1967, young playwright Tom Stoppard burst onto the London theater scene when the National Theatre’s production of his brilliant comedy, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, made him the talk of the town. Following that success, he returned to an unfinished play that had stumped him years earlier and, in 1968, unveiled The Real Inspector Hound.

 

Where R&G Are Dead is built on the plot and characters of Hamlet, The Real Inspector Hound, complete with scattered red herrings, descending fogs, suspenseful radio announcements, heavy-handed coincidences, and a madman on the loose, borrowsfrom—and heavily parodies— The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie. But Stoppard doubles the parody, adding a parallel plot to the classic murder-mystery to hilarious and surprising effect, while remaining true to the heart lurking in every whodunit: the desire to get away with murder. “I didn’t know how to do it,” Stoppard remarked later. “I just got into it, and I knew that I wanted it somehow to resolve itself in a breathtakingly neat, complex but utterly comprehensible way.”

 

Whether truth or humblebrag, The Real Inspector Hound embodies all that we now associate with Stoppardian theater: a mix of seriousness with farce, a relish for all kinds of word-play, a passion for elegant dramatic structures, and a breathtaking balancing act at the intersect ion of “reality” and “fiction.” The Real Inspector Hound remains one of Stoppard’s most enduring comic gems for the stage.
A better Mousetrap indeed.