Shaw Festival's Tony-winning drama ‘Sleuth’ is a thrilling game of cat and mouse — until it isn't

But if the windup in “Sleuth” is somewhat slow, the payoff is well worth it. And once its narrative is locked and set, its kinetic potential pushed to its limits, Shaffer’s 1970 play explodes with the force of a dam being torn asunder. 

The two smarmy men at its centre are Andrew Wyke (Patrick Galligan) and Milo Tindle (Sepehr Reybod). The former, an accomplished mystery writer, has invited Milo over for a drink to settle some scores. The younger gentleman, we learn, is actually the lover of Andrew’s wife. 

But what begins as a tête-à-tête turns into a sly game of cat and mouse, filled with role reversals and unexpected twists. Soon, the stakes are ratcheted up ever higher: our house cat transforms into a lynx, then a bobcat, then a lion, gnashing teeth ready to rip its prey to shreds. 

Galligan and Reybod are equally excellent, like two judokas in a tense stalemate. Their characters are slick, greasy men: Andrew’s cunning hides beneath his charming artifice, while Milo conceals his true nature under his youthfulness. Confined together in Andrew’s home (Sim Suzer’s set is a fine replica of a Victorian-era manor), the duo engage in high-stakes psychological combat — pinning each other in a chokehold, throwing one another to and fro, with the power constantly shifting between the pair. 

All this tension brews in Shaffer’s script, with dialogue bouncing back and forth between the characters like a ping-pong rally where each hit is more forceful than the last. “You’ve got all the killer instinct of a twenty-year-old poodle,” Andrew says mockingly to Milo, in one of the play’s many zingers. 

Director Peter Fernandes’s taut production brims with tension, too. John Gzowski’s original music and sound design is reminiscent of Jonny Greenwood’s score for “One Battle After Another.” It’s all pedal tones and wily harmonic lines, conjuring an atmosphere of unease that builds up like steam in a pressure cooker without a release valve. 

This revival also works as well as it does because Fernandes understands that “Sleuth” is itself a game for audiences — an intellectual game filled with backstabbing and deception, but still a game nonetheless. Suzer’s set, from its checkerboard floor to shelves filled with brain teasers, is packed with game references and hides a few surprises. Even the show’s program is used by Fernandes to misdirect his audience. (I won’t say what’s in it, but I certainly was fooled.) 

Originally premiering toward the end of the golden age of the British mystery whodunit, “Sleuth” in some ways is a spoof of that genre, flipping the formula perfected by writers like Agatha Christie on its head.  

But “Sleuth” isn’t exactly a comedic spoof. Fun as it may be, this game — this charade — between Andrew and Milo must come crashing down. And in the end, it does, with deadly consequences. Fernandes builds up to this moment perfectly, so much so that when it arrives, it does so on a tragic breath of inevitability. It’s highly chilling, too. 

So, more than merely being a spoof, I think “Sleuth” is really more of an allegory, a warning packaged as a parody. We see these cat-and-mouse games all around us: in business, in politics, within our own families. And it may all seem benign and like some good-natured fun. But as Shaffer warns: A game is only a game — until it isn’t.