March 13, 2015 | Cannon Beach Gazette | cannonbeachgazette.com • 11A By Erick Bengel Cannon Beach Gazette J enni Tronier, an ac- tor and employee of the Coaster The- atre Playhouse since 2013, makes her debut as a Coast- er director this month with Agatha Christie’s 1946 play, “Murder on the Nile.” Adapted from Christie’s 1937 novel Death on the Nile, the play tells the story of 12 characters — including a newlywed couple, a jilted ¿DQFp D 6RFLDOLVW D *HU man tourist and a wealthy, snobbish old lady — whose lives intersect aboard a pad- dle steamer traveling south along the Nile River from Aswan to Wadi Halfa. And, since this is an Ag- DWKD &KULVWLH VWRU\ ³6RPH one dies, people are sus- pected and blamed and then it’s up to the one detective FKDUDFWHUWR¿JXUHLWDOORXW´ Tronier said. “It’s hard to summarize without giving too much away.” The show, which clocks in at roughly two hours and 15 minutes with intermis- sion, opens March 13 and runs through April 18. It contains adult themes and theatrical gunshots but no foul language; if it was a PRYLHLWZRXOGEHUDWHG3* Fan club Christie (1890-1976) is famous for her crime novels, short stories and plays. Her name is “synonymous with the classic murder mystery,” VDLG 7URQLHU ZKR ¿UVW UHDG Death on the Nile in high school. “Agatha Christie is her own genre, really,” said 'DYLG 6ZHHQH\ ZKR SOD\V WKH *HUPDQLF 'U %HVVQHU “There are a lot of mystery plays, but, basically, she’s a benchmark in theater and in GHWHFWLYHQRYHOV6RDORWRI times, people will be com- pared to her work: ‘This is like Agatha Christie, blah, blah, blah.’ It’s sort of like going to the source, to do a play that she wrote.” Frank Jagodnik and Liz McCall, a married couple, count themselves Chris- tie fans. “I used to read her books when I was a child,” said McCall who plays Lou- ise, a maid. Some of the suspicious characters in “Murder on the Nile” include, from left , Frank Jagodnik (stand- ing), Katie Youngs, David Sweeney, Jean Rice, Ellen Jensen, Mick Alder- man, Josh Loring and Amie Fipps PHOTO BY GEORGE VETTER/CANNON-BEACH.NET Coaster Theatre stages Agatha Christie’s ‘Murder on the Nile’ This is the third Chris- tie play the Coaster has put on, and “if there’s an Agatha Christie, we try to be in it,” said Jagodnik, who plays the detective, Canon Pennefather. “Murder on the Nile” keeps the audience on its toes, Tronier said. “That’s the one thing about a good murder mys- tery, is that you’re constant- O\ WU\LQJ WR ¿JXUH RXW ZKR dunnit,” she said. Audience members should be asking themselves, “What are the clues? Where are the red her- ULQJV":KHUHFDQ,¿QGMXVWD hint of who the murderer is?” a lot of human nature,” she said. What’s more, Christie “not only creates unique char- acters, but then (she) creates unique relationships between VSHFL¿Fpairs of characters,” Jensen quipped. In “Murder on the Nile,” the river and the setting are practically characters in themselves, Tronier said. Christie “brings the roman- ticism of the 1920s, 1930s ‘Every character is very specifi c, and every character is defi nitely unique and motivated in their own way. It’s a lot of human nature’ Ellen Jensen, “Jacqueline de Severac” added Mick Alderman, who SOD\V6LPRQ0RVW\QDSHQ Characters niless newlywed. Alderman One of Christie’s strengths also designed the lighting for as a storyteller is her ability to the play. create a memorable, well-de- Trapped in a small space, veloped cast of characters, the comedy and tension said Ellen Jensen, who plays among the characters esca- -DFTXHOLQHGH6HYHUDF lates. Then “they start killing “Every character is very each other,” Jagodnik said. VSHFL¿FDQGHYHU\FKDUDFWHU “It would still probably LVGH¿QLWHO\XQLTXHDQGPR be entertaining without the tivated in their own way. It’s murder ... just not as much,” Egypt to life.” Social signifi cance Thoughtful viewers may enjoy Christie’s take on the social structure of early 20th century England. “It’s really common in a lot of English plays of this period that some, if not all, of the tension comes from class and social stand- ing,” Tronier said. “English tax. For the happily married Amie Fipps, it was playing a bachelorette. %XW IRU WKH HQWLUH FDVW who has been living with the material since December, the biggest challenge will be “re- membering it’s brand new to the audience, and we have to bring it fresh every time we do it and not allow ourselves to remember where it ends. We have to be in each moment as LW GHYHORSV´ 6ZHHQH\ VDLG This is true of every play, of course, but, “in a mystery es- pecially, it’s more of a distinct challenge in some ways not to play the outcome.” %XW HYHQ DIWHU WKH DXGL ence knows the outcome, that doesn’t mean the entertain- ment value of the play has di- Challenges minished. After all, knowing Each actor has had to who the killer is can make overcome at least one chal- for a new experience the sec- lenge with his or her charac- ond time through. “Hey, I’ve been enter- ter. For McCall, it was hav- ing to act subservient. For tained, and I’ve seen it quite 6ZHHQH\ LW ZDV PDVWHULQJ a few times,” Tronier said, DFRQYLQFLQJ*HUPDQLFV\Q laughing. aristocratic society was breaking down ... The lines between the haves and have- nots were blurring, and there were people who liked that and people who didn’t.” The Miss Ffolio-Ffoul- kes character, played by Jean Rice as “dripping with silliness and a kind of kook- iness,” is “very concerned about everybody’s position and who is lesser than her — and she’s not afraid to show it,” Tronier said. “Even the Communist character who wants equal- ity is still demeaning toward people who are ‘lower’ than him,” Jensen said. The class structure is “so ingrained in them.” Festival includes focused drawing of the human form Festival from Page 1A down — the painful heartache songs,” she said. Compassion “We hunger for compas- VLRQ:HFUDYHLW:HEHQH¿W from it. We long to know how to express it more consistent- ly, more effectively,” she said. Unfortunately, “we don’t have a particularly compassionate culture,” which she described as a “very competitive, mate- rialistic, consumeristic culture, rife with anxiety and depres- sion” and consequent physical disorders. Positioned in the wide- legged forward bend (also known as the prasarita padotta- nasana), the group meditated on compassion. Then, in the down- ward-facing dog pose, they imagined dissolving the tension caused by their own noncom- passionate word and “the story about feeling lame or ashamed.” “We can apply compas- sion to the pain we’re causing ourselves ... That’s one of the pathways out,” she said. “If you apply cruelty to cruelty, you won’t get out. You just go further in.” In the back of the hall sat *LQD /HRQ RI 3RUWODQG D