Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, the world’s longest-running play, is now on stage at the Riverside Center for the Performing Arts, bringing Broadway-caliber intrigue, sophisticated humor and surprising twists to the Fredericksburg area through August 23.
The classic murder mystery follows a group of strangers trapped at a countryside inn during a snowstorm. When a local woman is murdered, it becomes clear the killer is among them. Suspicion mounts, secrets surface and a second killing raises the stakes as a detective arrives on skis to interrogate the guests.
“It’s a fantastic show,” said Potomac Local publisher Uriah Kiser, who attended with his wife. “It’s a departure from the singing and dancing Riverside is known for, but this production lights up the stage in a great way.”
Kiser sat down with two of the production’s leads — Mia Gomez Montero, who plays newlywed innkeeper Mollie Ralston in her Riverside debut, and longtime Riverside regular Kevin Cleary, who plays her husband, Giles Ralston.
A Gear Shift for a Musical Theater Standout
Gomez Montero, a recent graduate of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London with a master’s degree focused on acting and performance, brings a strong musical theater background to the role. Her credits include Nina in In the Heights, ensemble work in Cinderella at Plays-In-The-Park, and Sabina in The Skin of Our Teeth.
“Coming off the back of a musical theater master’s degree, that was totally a gear shift,” Gomez Montero said. “But I was really lucky that in my master’s it was a concentration of acting and performance, so I had the privilege of doing mostly scene study.”
She found unexpected similarities between the mystery and musical theater. “This show functions in a very similar manner to a musical to me, because everyone is a little bit of a stock character, but then you dive into the nitty-gritty, and we see how everything devolves in Act Two. To me, Molly could be in a musical world. I think that Molly and Giles really could be the couple in Beetlejuice if they wanted to be.”
Maintaining a consistent British dialect throughout the performance was another key element. Gomez Montero credited her year of ear training in London and a strict personal rule: she never said her lines out of dialect, even during notes or offhand moments.
“Half of it is really muscle memory when it comes down to doing a dialect,” she said. “It was just another fun element to add on to stepping into a character that is outside of yourself.”
A Familiar Face in a Different Role
Cleary, a Riverside staple for more than two decades since his 2002 debut in Oliver!, recently played Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar and Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express. This time, instead of the detective, he plays the husband who finds himself increasingly out of control as chaos unfolds.
“It’s very much the opposite in this show,” Cleary said. “Where Poirot is the one who’s sort of observing and in control of the situation, Giles is very much not. He’s very much just adrift.”
His inspiration came from years of watching BBC Poirot adaptations. “There’s always one guy in every mystery who — this is the first setback he’s had, and he’s not handling it very well. That’s sort of my inspiration for Giles.”
Cleary’s favorite Christie novel is The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, which he said “doesn’t translate well to the screen — you have to read it for it to really hit.”
The Set as a Character
Both actors praised the production’s intricate set, designed to feel like a post-World War II structure — once a monastery, then a wealthy relative’s dwelling, now being refurbished as an inn by the young couple.
“The set is very much a character in this,” Cleary said. “A lot of the humor involves the set when people go in one door and maybe come out another.”
The opening moments, including a misspelled sign that becomes a running prop gag, immediately pull the audience into the world of Monkswell Manor.
A Fast, Collaborative Process
Director Andrew Foote, who has previously performed at Riverside alongside his wife, assembled the company on a tight three-and-a-half-week rehearsal schedule. Gomez Montero, who had worked with Foote before and counted him and his wife as childhood mentors, said the speed never felt chaotic.
“What surprised me the most was that everybody was willing to grab onto one another and go at the breakneck speed,” she said. “Everybody was working to their fullest potential. Every time we came in the room, everybody was really locked in… We have just a really great group of smart individuals that are really determined to honor the tradition of The Mousetrap.”
As a newcomer to the Riverside family, Gomez Montero said she felt immediately welcomed. “There was never a part of this process that made me feel like I was the new kid.”
See It While You Can
The Mousetrap continues through August 23 at the Riverside Center for the Performing Arts, 95 Riverside Parkway in Stafford. Performances typically run Wednesdays at 1:30 p.m., Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., and Sundays at 3 p.m.
Tickets and full show information are available at RiversideDT.com.
Whether you’re a longtime Christie fan or simply looking for a smart, twisty escape from the summer heat, this production delivers the classic thrills that have kept audiences guessing for more than seven decades.
