Alex Keiper, Blake Hamilton Currie), Dale Hodges, and Sophia Garcia Photo by Mikki Schaffner

That event has been the source of much speculation regarding what transpired, although it faded as Christie's reputation grew during decades of successful novel writing (63 in all, maybe one more...) and plays. But this odd lacuna has never been put to rest. It seems likely that she was in a deep depression brought about by her mother's recent death and her husband's affair with a young woman. Christie has countless fans who are drawn annually to a festival celebrating her life and creative output.

In Armbruster's imaginative script, a depressed Christie fan at this festival a century later, stumbles on something that might solve the mystery. The play opens with a realistic–and amusing–scene in which Agatha (picture-perfect Alex Keiper) enters her book-strewn study screaming hysterically that "Peter is dead." Of course, we leap to the conclusion that this could be the murder to be solved. But it turns out that Peter is her beloved dog who is momentarily missing, as her sardonic friend Charlotte sets her straight. But the 37-year-old writer's hysteria is real and deeply rooted, ramped up again by the unwitting arrival of her arrogant, misogynistic husband, Archie (Matt Bowdren), and his blithe mistress, Nancy (Amira Danan), who Agatha tries to poison.

Then a strange time warp has Lucy (Zoë Sophia Garcia), a forlorn bartender from Ohio attending the festival, stumbling into the study talking on her cell phone. The 1926 action has frozen, and it's revealed that Lucy's plight has some curious overlap and resonance with Agatha's. Nosing through papers on the desk she finds pages that might be from a missing novel. Almost immediately, an encounter with William (Blake Hamilton Currie), another desperate fan, reveals that he's onto the same discovery, complicating matters. A starchy elderly guest named Jane (veteran Cincinnati actor Dale Hodges) wanders through and provides Lucy with some startling insights about the pages. Her deductive insights suggest that she is likely Miss Jane Marple, a sharp-minded, eccentric spinster and crime solver from more than a dozen Christie novels and short stories.

Subsequent scenes in a dining room and a hotel room–beautifully depicted via Se Hyun Oh's revolving scenic design–slide back and forth across moments of interlocking events in the first act. Lucy's life and Agatha's have some surprising common ground.

Following the intermission, Mrs. Christie spins into even more fanciful, dreamlike territory, full of magical realism, but still populated by these characters, some in different but similar incarnations. Adding to the merriment is "Monsieur" (William Studivant), an obvious doppelganger of Christie's master detective, mustachioed Hercule Poirot, injecting self-important but sometimes errant advice. He and Agatha debate how mysteries are solved, and a delightful exchange has them each land separately in a clawfoot bathtub in her hotel room surrounded by surreal imagery.

Lucy and Agatha eventually encounter one another across the time warp and compare their mutual plights, discovering how they need to find their own paths back to life by writing the solutions to their circumstances. Armbruster's cleverly paralleled tales interlock perfectly, thanks to director Joanie Schultz's perceptive staging, as the women feel their way out of their predicaments and toward resolution. Neatly reflecting the device often employed by Christie to conclude her mystery stories with all the characters onstage while seemingly inscrutable circumstances are sorted out, the play's conclusion has several amusing moments of starting, rewinding, and restarting until a satisfying finale wraps things up.

I suspect Christie's traditional fans could be put off by how this story is told, especially the complex way that time is fluidly handled. Nevertheless, this ingenious script addresses profound issues, especially how women cope with grief and confounding circumstances. While Agatha and Lucy are separated by a century, they show how women can come to terms with seemingly insurmountable challenges and find greater strength within themselves. That happens in this unexpectedly entertaining piece of imaginative storytelling.

Armbruster's play was developed over the past decade; it has received a handful of presentations since its debut in 2023. The Playhouse's staging of Mrs. Christie is a co-production with the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre; Joanie Schultz's rendition will move there in April and May with the same cast. (That theater will also present Christie's And Then There Were None in May and June.)

Mrs. Christie runs through March 29, 2026, at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, 962 Mt. Adams Circle in Eden Park, adjacent to Mt. Adams, Cincinnati OH. For tickets and information, please visit cincyplay.com or call 513-421-3888.