Although most of the sketches in Killing My Lobster’s new show take place in mid- to early-20th century England, one is situated in the modern-day United States. It finds a pair of Agatha Christie enthusiasts visiting a medium in the hopes communicating with the late author via séance. We quickly learn this isn’t the first medium they’ve tried—but their previous candidates were put off by the sheer number of racial epithets Christie’s ghost spewed. Though Christie’s work isn’t often compared to that of American horror author HP Lovecraft, the two similarly wrote stories in which sickeningly high body counts were often matched by stomach-churning racism. (Look no further than the original title of And Then There Were None.)
That combination of outsized influence and outdated sensibilities makes Christie—and the murder mystery genre she helped refine—perfect fodder for KML, who practically laid the groundwork for this show, J’Accuse! (runs through Sat/5 at Eclectic Box), in 2018 with a similar show about Alfred Hitchcock. Just as that cinematic misogynist revolutionized his medium with dynamic camerawork and streamlined storytelling, so too did Christie pave the road that eventually led to everything from the game Clue and its movie franchise to the Knives Out films that satirize the genre.
Nearly all of Christie’s most famous creations get a nod in this show, with the first proper sketch featuring the mighty mustache and equally thick accent of Hercule Poirot (an hilarious Melanie Marshall), who boasts that he’s solved yet another murder. Unfortunately, the “photo evidence” on which his case hinges is nothing more than a series of Rorschach images, revealing the Frenchman to have quite a few Oedipal hang-ups. Miss Marple (Laura Domingo) also pops in for a quickie sketch to deal with a body (Marshall) that’s less “dead” and more “dead-ish.”
Yet, the show wisely refuses to limit its focus to Christie stories exclusively. Make no mistake: A great many of the sketches feature characters sitting around a drawing room as some self-appointed inspector pontificates at length about whodunit ‘n’ where ‘n’ wiff wat (English accents are slaughtered quite frequently). Likewise, a great many unsuspecting victims are shocked to realize the drinks they’ve just consumed were heavily poisoned. There’s also a clever sketch that pokes fun at Christie’s racism and how English aristocrats sympathize with Nazis over the Irish.
But the troupe (directed by Gina Bardi with a writing team lead by Mike Ottum) also leaves room for hilarious out-of-nowhere sketches like “Mr. Lee’s Mysteries”, a mash-up of Mister Roger’s Neighborhood and Dora the Explorer in which the eponymous Mr. Lee (Andrew Chung) tries to hold his composure as he ponders the disappearance of his wife—a task made no easier by a obnoxious toddler (Domingo.) It’s also how we find ourselves watching a QVC show in which a rather dim host (Domingo) and her malicious co-host (Bailey Hopkins) have different reactions to the murder weapons they’re selling to impulse-purchasing rubes on live TV.
It’s worth noting that the latter two sketches both feature Marshall as the unwilling participant in the “cheery” goings-on. As usual, Marshall proves she can do more with one pointed glare than a hundred clowns can do with a million pratfalls. Domingo and Chung bring their usual A-game to KML, with the former easily moving between hoity Brit and obnoxious kid, and the latter nearly stealing the whole show with his bro-tastic U.S. gumshoe who really wants folks to know he’s American. KML newbie Chuck Lacson holds his old with the veteran ensemble, particularly in a sketch in which he and Chung play brothers on a yacht trip that neither wants the other to survive. Regular KML writer Bailey Hopkins rounds out the roster, showing she has as admirable sense of timing onstage as she has comedic sense in writing.
It’s a strong show to cap off KML’s truncated year. Like every other vital arts organization, they’ve had to do some belt-tightening and reconfiguring to stay active. As such, their number of shows was cut back to, roughly, one-per-season rather than the monthly or bi-monthly output of previous years. They’ve also experimented with their format and invited more members of the Bay Area performance community to take part. Perhaps knowing that this is their season finale, a lot of energy was poured into this show, and it pays off in all the best ways.
This was also their first full year as residents at Eclectic Box, the former Stage Werx storefront black box in the Mission. It’s great to see that location still thriving, even as I hope the building’s HVAC will one day get an upgrade. By the end of the one-hour show, the CO² readings on my Aranet4 peaked at 2,430ppm. There’s only so much you can do in a very old building in a city where price (and permitted construction) is often out of reach.
Nevertheless, the show itself is a strong closer for the year, and a worthy reminder as to why KML is one of the most beloved indie troupes left in SF. The tagline says it features, “sketch comedy inspired, but not all approved, by Agatha Christie.” Given how the author’s depictions of non-whites often leaned towards, shall we say, the “Goebbels-esque,” we should probably be grateful that she’s not around to give her opinions in that regard. But for everyone who gets a kick out of spoofing tropes of melodramatic murderers and the doofy detectives who catch them, this show has you covered.
J’ACCUSE! runs through Sat/5. Eclectic Box, SF. Tickets and more info here.
