The first song I heard about a dinghy was "He’s Got the Cutest Little Dinghy in the Navy," and is was sung by Ruth Wallis, who made a specialty of lyrics with sex-laden double entendres during and after World War II, though she continued singing the same songs long enough to show up in St. Louis in the 1970s or 80s for an engagement at the St. Louis Playboy Club, when the city had one.
Imagine my surprise last night during "Something’s Afoot," when Colleen Caul, "the saucy maid" in "Something’s Afoot," broke into a song called "Dinghy," about an equally small craft. Eventually, it became a duet with the delightful Jordan Reinwald as Flint, the caretaker, Geoffrey, played by Nate McClure. He seemed quite proud of the size of the dinghy, in which they planned to flee an island before they were murdered.
The mostly dull comedy with music, which runs through Sunday, is a production of the Insight Theatre Company at the Heagney Theatre on the Webster Groves campus of Neerinx Hall.
James McDonald, David Vos and Robert Gerlach, who wrote book, music and lyrics, try to spoof old-fashioned English mystery yarns from the Agatha Christie-Arthur Conan Doyle-Mary Roberts Rinehart school, with the cast trapped in a single house or room where they experience a variety of exotic fates before someone exposes the villain. African spears, a Chinoise bar, an exploding stair, a gas-exuding wall phone (the play is set in 1935) and other odd devices claim their victims.
"Something’s Afoot" had a Broadway run of 61 performances in the spring of 1976, and Barbara Heuman sang about the dinghy.
Janet Wells, as Miss Tweed, the loudest speaker in the room, decides she’ll take the lead in finding the murderer, and she brings a strong lead to "Suspicious" and "I Owe it All," the latter a tribute to those early 20th-century mystery writers. Ed Reggi as the very stuffy, slightly over-stuffed Col. Gillweather, is dependable, and good marks go to Reinwald, John Kinney and Nate McClure, mainly because they do the best work with dance routines from choreographer Lara Teeter, some of which almost make up for the shortcomings of the script. It’s a weak story which desperately needs punching up, while the actors too often seemed to be in a very English fog. Accents were all over the map
Miss Tweed, Col. Gillweather and others bring a fond memory of Mr. Plum and Col. Mustard, but these authors simply don’t have a Clue.
An Insight Theatre Company Production through Sunday at the Heagney Theatre
–Joe