Not exactly Agatha Christie. While there were some giggles, the highlight of the first two-thirds of Clue was the guy behind me explaining the intricacies of his Halloween couch potato costume.

Part of the problem was that I didn’t particularly care for the characters (with no offense to the actors, whom I’ve seen do good work elsewhere). The suspects displayed fewer dimensions than their cardboard, board game avatars.

It occurred to me that it would have been more interesting if the dramatis personae had been the survivors of the S.S. Minnow. In fact, Episode 16 of Season 2 of Gilligan’s Island, entitled Not Guilty, wherein the setup suggests that one of the castaways is a killer, was a better whodunnit.

That said, the last half hour or so of Clue provided some real entertainment, beginning with Chicago favorite Mark David Kaplan, as the butler, being cut loose to deliver a rapid, over-the-top summary of the prior action on a par with Nathan Lane’s rendition of Betrayed as his jail cell synopsis of the story in The Producers. They probably have to replace the scenery after every performance once Kaplan gets done chewing it with exquisite aplomb.