Just in time for spooky season, ‘Ravenscroft’ delights

Riverwalk Theatre can always be counted on to offer something seasonal around Halloween, and “Ravenscroft” is this year’s dark offering. That is, darkly comic and frightfully clever.

The year is 1905. Inspector Ruffing (Jeff Kennedy) is called out to the remote English manor Ravenscroft to investigate a possible murder. The footman Patrick has been found dead at the bottom of a staircase — as it turns out, the same staircase where the lord of the house was found dead three months prior. Over the course of the evening, Ruffing must unwind the spool of stories and lies spun by the five women who inhabit the manor.

The plot feels like the progeny of the 1971 film “The Beguiled” and the 1985 film “Clue,” which is not as unlikely as it sounds. In “The Beguiled,” a group of women at a remote school in the Civil War South take in a wounded Union soldier, and the presence of the sole male wreaks havoc on the household. Similarly, the women of Ravenscroft attempt to confound and beguile Ruffing to keep him from the truth about Patrick’s death.

The governess, Marcy Kliner (Naomi Collazo Coca), freely admits to pushing Patrick down the stairs as she resisted his drunken advances, but Ruffing doubts the veracity of her story. As he questions the other women, the story becomes more convoluted, and the frustration of finding the truth grows to drunken exasperation. Kennedy transitions nicely from a buttoned-down, “just the facts” detective to a manic man undone by the manipulative women.

The cast is solid, but two performers stand out. Coca is the embodiment of an Edwardian governess. Not only does she have the tightly laced mannerisms and physical poise expected of a woman in her position, but her diction and delicate accent are spot on as well. From the opening scene, it is clear that Ruffing has met his match in this quietly formidable woman.

On the other end of the spectrum is the mercurial Gillian, a petulant, manipulative 17-year-old who is learning the power of feminine wiles and practices them on Ruffing. Kira Elena Billard’s performance alone is worth the cost of admission. Gillian plays an extreme game of cat and mouse with Ruffing, toying with him out of boredom and to gain power. She also shows moments of true conflict over her own feelings, at one point musing about the possibility of Ruffing being either her husband or her father. In a modern setting, no adult man should be left alone with this girl.

Riverwalk’s black box is a perfect environment for this intimate story, which plays out in the manor’s sitting room. The staging is particularly interesting in that the cast never leaves the stage. Instead, the women retreat to seats on the perimeter of the stage, executing menial tasks in the background. They are all part of the story and remain so throughout. Director Amanda Macomber also designed the costumes, which, along with Bernie Lucas’ simple yet elegant props, complete the atmosphere of the period.

Having addressed what is good to great about the play, it is fair to say that the reveal of whodunit strains credulity a bit. Still, given the quality of the production and its gentle slide into farce near the end, “Ravenscroft” is a fine fall treat.