‘The Mousetrap’: A Trap Built in Plain Sight

The Mousetrap

Mask & Mirror Community Theatre — March 1, 2026
2:30 p.m. Matinee — The Stage at Rise Church, Tigard, Oregon

Directed by Matt Russell
By Agatha Christie

Cast:
Mollie Ralston — Erin Bickler
Giles Ralston — Shane Rudolph
Detective Trotter — Adrian Rosales
Mrs. Boyle — Virginia Kinkaid
Miss Casewell — Cassandra Brown
Christopher Wren — Noah Keener
Mr. Paravicini — Marc Berezin
Major Metcalf — Mark Putnam

At 2:30 p.m., in full daylight, I took my seat inside a church hall in Tigard for The Mousetrap. Outside, it was an ordinary Saturday afternoon. Inside, snow had already begun to fall over Monkswell Manor.

The set was warm and contained — staircase to the right, two doors framing the room, a fireplace steady at center, and a chair near the entrance that would soon matter. Before the lights dimmed, “Three Blind Mice” played softly.

Before the mystery began to tighten, it all felt almost quaint and familiar.

An early exchange between Mrs. Boyle and Miss Casewell stuck with me. Mrs. Boyle insisted there should be “a proper staff” and complained that “the lower classes seem to have no idea their responsibilities.” Casewell answered evenly — “Oh, the poor upper classes” — and described herself as “pale pink,” uninterested in political labels. It felt like drawing-room sparring at the time. Only later did it feel like something firmer — like a worldview quietly stated.

By intermission, the room had changed.

Mrs. Boyle had been found slumped in the chair by the door. The lights had gone out. The nursery rhyme returned, no longer quaint. The mechanism was clearly in motion, and I felt certain I was closing in.

Miss Casewell’s earlier exchange with Mrs. Boyle came back to me, but it did not persuade me that Casewell had a motive. I ruled her out early.

Christopher Wren felt possible—too restless, too theatrical. But his theatrics seemed almost too obvious to persuade me.

Mr. Paravicini leaned so comfortably into comic relief that it felt almost strategic. He had arrived unannounced, yet moved easily between the appearance of a gentle old man and someone much more calculating. Still, I ultimately ruled him out too.

But I kept circling back to one person: Giles Ralston.

He seemed destabilized but not emotional, strangely calm amid the confusion after Mrs. Boyle’s murder. His eye shifts felt contained rather than panicked, and he had been outside repeatedly in the snow. He and Mollie had married after only three weeks of dating and had only just begun running the guesthouse.

Something in the timeline felt slightly off.

At one point, I was convinced: it was Giles.

Mollie Ralston’s trembling hands during the interrogation scenes made her seem as though she might be holding something back. Even so, I ruled her out.

I briefly considered Major Metcalf too; his calmness could be suspicious.

By then, though, I had become so focused on individual mannerisms and possible timelines that I had stopped noticing the larger pattern Christie was arranging around them.

---

What I admired afterward was that Christie had not hidden the clues from me. She had simply made me pay attention to the wrong things. I noticed instability, visible tension, and anyone who seemed slightly off. The more certain I became of my own deductions, the less I noticed the larger pattern taking shape around them.

The set will be struck. The snow will melt. The banner outside will come down.

For two daylight hours, I moved through a maze I thought I understood.

I left realizing how readily I had trusted the room.