An illusionist, an escape artist and a medium board a train bound for John and Mable Ringling’s Sarasota mansion on the Gulf of Mexico. No, this is not the lead-in for a joke. It’s the predicate for the latest play being performed on board the Seminole Gulf Murder Mystery Dinner Train. Producer Hannah Fay explains.
“This is a show that takes place in the 1920s," Fay said. "It kind of follows along the line of the famous magician Harry Houdini and his whole illusion act. So it’s kind of taking inspiration from that time period and the rise of illusionists and magicians.”
"The Illusion of Death" revolves around escape artist Barry Boudini and his wife and assistant, Lillie. The couple has accepted an invitation to do a private performance for the Ringlings at their Gulf Coast mansion, known as Ca' d'Zan.
Boudini plans to perform the “Death Trap,” his latest death-defying illusion. But there are others who know its secret.
“It’s a really fun cast of characters," Fay said.
"You’ve got the brother, who’s also a rival. You have the magician’s wife. You have his private physician. You have the former assistant that’s working with the brother and a Spiritualist/Séance, the Mystic Zanzabar. They’re all just so unique and wacky, but they all could be suspicious of murder.”
Barry’s brother, Benjamin, is not just a rival. Once Barry’s business partner, the long-suffering Benjamin has always been jealous of his brother success in work and with women. Benjamin has joined Barry on board the train in hopes of reviving his career by crashing the party at Ca' d'Zan.
He travels with his own assistant, the lovely Isabelle Garrison, a fiery force in her own right who was also Barry’s assistant once upon a time.
Rounding out the cast of characters are Barry’s personal physician and trusted confidante, Dr. Patterson and a spiritualist who goes by the moniker of the Mystic Zanzibar. The Ringlings have invited the medium for purposes of leading a séance, and if Barry Boudini bears any resemblance to Harry Houdini, the sparks are apt to fly as Houdini publicly inveighed against fraudulent mediums who conned grieving customers out of their money.
In fact, just a few months before his untimely death on Halloween in 1926, Houdini testified before Congress in support of legislation that would have criminalized fortune-telling for hire.
According to Director Troy Nelson, plausibility is the hook that gets each passenger involved in the storyline.
“Every character has some gimmick or some ploy or character flaw that would give them at least some kind of reason to be a killer," Nelson said. "We want to keep them guessing as much as we can.”
This point is amply illustrated in this scene between Boudini’s wife, Lillie, played by Louise K. Cornetta, and Boudini’s personal physician, Dr. Patterson, played by Troy Nelson.
Dr. Patterson: "Oh please! Barry told me the truth about you … uh, uh … about you cooking the books, huh? The constant control. The jealousy. The false accusations. And oh, by the way, he was going to fire you before the Ringling party. So bye. So you killed him in a jealous rage and you set up Isabelle."
Lillie Boudini: "Barry told me the exact same thing about you!"
It may sound like the actors are guilty of overacting. That’s intentional.
In most scenes, the actors are standing at opposite ends of a long dining car. They’re battling the metallic sound of train’s wheels clanging along the metal tracks, traffic from adjoining roadways and utensils scraping plates.
In Louise K. Cornetta’s experience, audiences love the actors’ antics.
"It’s very over-the-top and dramatic," Cornetta said. "The more over-the-top, the more the audience seems to love it. So it’s a little different than the realism of a regular play.”
At its core, "The Illusion of Death" is a murder mystery, and the audience is challenged to figure out whodunit.
Each passenger receives a playbill, clue sheet, and pen to follow along with the live scripted show, writing down clues as they go. Clue sheets are collected before the final resolution act.
One prize is awarded by the actors to one "super sleuth" in each dining car. A bonus question may be used to solve a tie, and neatness counts.
If you hope that super sleuth will be you, then Cornetta has some sage advice.
“Really be a good listener, and pick up on clues because there’s little things you might miss if you are paying attention to what you’re eating or looking outside," Cornetta said.
"Then trust your gut with you think is the killer. Usually it will make sense at the end who the killer is if you pay attention and you keep track of the clues and then add up who is the most likely suspect, who has the best motive.”
"The Illusion of Death" plays through July 31, 2024.
Performances are Wednesdays through Sundays. Murder Mystery Dinner Trains depart promptly at 6:30 p.m., except on Sundays and certain holidays, when the departure time moves up an hour to 5:30 p.m.
The trains depart from the Colonial Station in Fort Myers, and return to that location as well, and the actors always pose for selfies and give autographs you passengers disembark.
The Murder Mystery Dinner Train theater venue is a unique experience with the opportunity to enjoy the murder mystery play, interspersed with the five meal courses, beverage service, and of course, conversation with fellow tablemates.
To read more stories about the arts in Southwest Florida visit Tom Hall's website: SWFL Art in the News.
Spotlight on the Arts for WGCU is funded in part by Naomi Bloom, Jay & Toshiko Tompkins, and Julie & Phil Wade.
Script and audio engineered and produced by WGCU's Tara Calligan.
MORE INFORMATION
Go here for play dates, times and a full cast list.
- Louise K. Cornetta appears on the Murder Mystery Murder Train in “The Illusion of Death" in the role of Lillian Boudini, a “very brash, very no-nonsense woman who invariably gets what she wants.” Although she graduated cum laude with a degree in theater from the University of Southern California, Louise did not initially go into acting, Instead, she began a 27-year career at ESPN that took her to every major sporting event. Since relocating to Florida in 2022, Louise has appeared as Louise in Hollywood Arms (a role is based on Carol Burnette’s real-life mother, who struggled with and eventually died from alcoholism) and appeared in Vanities and Love Letters for Arts Center Theatre on Marco Island, the lead in Beer for Breakfast at The Studio Players and humorist Erma Bombeck in the one-woman show At Wit’s End (for which she was nominated for a 2022 Broadway World Award for Best Solo Performance) and the lead in A Girl’s Guide to Chaos for the Center for the Performing Arts Bonita Springs, where she has also performed in Funny Shorts Live, Stage-It and Staged Readings.
- Cornetta loves performing on the Murder Mystery Dinner Train. “It is so different than any other venue. You are on a moving train, which can be very loud at times, so you really have to learn to project. You also have to make sure you can keep your balance because sometimes you’re going pretty fast.”
- But it’s the challenge presented by performing the same scene for four to five different audiences as the train rolls along the track. “Each car has a different vibe to it. There are some cars that laugh at everything and get everything. So you can do your scene in that car, move to the next car and they’re just silently listening, and then you move to the next car and there are people talking or eating.”
- From the audience’s perspective, passengers have the chance to see actors perform up close and personal. Sometimes they’re sitting right next to where the actor is standing in the aisle in their dining car. That affords folks the opportunity to pick up on little nuances they might never see during a formal production on stage in a conventional theater or auditorium.
- Cornetta loves the audience’s reaction during the “resolution scene,” when the identity of the murderer is revealed. “Every time we announce, you know, when I say this person’s name and list all the reasons why they would have been the murderer, and then I say who it is, and they admit yes, I’m the murderer … every time that happens, you hear half the car being like, ‘Yes, I knew it!’ and the other half being like, ‘No, I thought it was that one.’ So then when the people leave the train, we always greet them, take photos, that type of thing, and you always have people like being “I thought it was you.’ Or like, ‘Wait, I have questions. Tell me, why was it him.’ It’s a lot of fun. People get really into it.”
- Troy Nelson directs and appears in the role of Barry Boudini’s personal physician, Dr. Patterson. Nelson has performed intermittently on the train since the late 1990s, but full-time since COVID. He has also performed at BIG ARTS, the Alliance for the Arts and FGCU before the university established its theatre program.
- Nelson not only concedes that his cast is compelled by the venue to over act, he’s given the phenomenon a name. “There are no subtleties on the train. We’re working against traffic and all those things. So we’re kind of loud and over the top. We call it controlled improv. We’ve got people coming in and out [of the dining car]. So the challenges are how to learn how to keep people focused and learn how to be loud, being able to project more than anything else.
- Like Cornetta, Nelson says that if the audience pays attention and keeps track of the clues, the identity of the murderer will emerge. “But some people complain good naturedly that we tricked them, and usually we tell them you’re overthinking it. We’re really not doing that. We’re not that smart. We want to make every [character] a plausible [suspect], but we don’t want to make it too difficult. But, yes, on a regular basis, somebody thinks they got hoodwinked."