'Murder' on Clifton High School's stage

CLIFTON – A murder mystery will hit the high school's newly upgraded auditorium this weekend when the student cast of Murder on the Orient Express takes the stage.

STAFF PHOTOS/DEMITRIUS BALEVSKI

Clifton High School drama teacher David Arts observing and directing the cast of 'Murder on the Orient Express.' Below, Arts watches as the high school actors run through a scene in the murder mystery penned by Agatha Christie.

Based on the novel by Agatha Christie, one of the mystery genre's masters, the Clifton High School production promises to pack a punch.

Amidst a blizzard, the story begins as a world-renowned Orient Express train is stopped dead in its tracks due to an impassable snowdrift. By the following morning, one of the train's millionaire passengers is found dead in his compartment with his door locked from the inside.

Isolated by the storm, detective Hercule Poirot is charged with deducing which of the dead man's 12 enemies aboard the train is responsible for the murder before the killer can strike again.

David Arts, the play's director, said the story of an international group of people on a mysterious adventure made it crucial to the production's authenticity that the CHS students learn the accents and the correct pronunciation of certain phrases in their characters' languages.

"The students have embraced all of the aspects of this play," Arts said. "Besides the accents and characterizations, there are the multiple layers of duplicity.

Arts said he always enjoyed the 1974 Sidney Lumet-directed film which starred Albert Finney and Sean Connery and, as a result, has hoped to bring it to the stage for some time. "I knew that this group of students would be just right for these characters," he added.

Greg Gwyn, who plays Poirot, said he had never before read a Christie novel before but now considers it an honor to play the story's central figure.

"The main challenge of bringing this work to life is assuming the identity of such a character," Gwyn said. "It takes a lot of effort to play him and even more to be him."

The production's star said the audience faces a difficult task if they hope to solve the case before the curtains are drawn to a close.

"There are tons of plot twists and red herrings that keep you guessing till the very end," said Gwyn who complimented Christie's timeless storytelling. "All [her books] share the captivating writing and cliff-hangers that hold readers' interests back then and today."

In portraying the character of Francesca Bianchi, Poirot's friend and railway line director, CHS student Allison Green said the hardest part of adapting the novel would involve successfully creating the illusion of the train.

She said the play's director, set designer and builder did a "magnificent" job in bringing the stage to life, however. "They blow me away every time," Green added.

Kenneth Fowler, who plays the train conductor character Pierre Michel, had read the novel before doing the show and anticipated many of the obstacles the cast would have to overcome in putting on the show.

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