Ramiz Monsef and John Tufts Photo by Dan Norman

The play is a thriller/comedy devised to inspire numerous gasps from the audience. The first of these occurs when the curtain rises and we get our first look at scenic designer Todd Rosenthal's set. It is the interior drawing room of an immense and elaborate Victorian manor home in Wiltshire, the county in the southwest of England where one finds the mysterious ancient site, Stonehenge. This room is nearly as mysterious, busy as it is with all manner of artifacts, antiquities, oddities, and a menagerie of wall-mounted big game. A mezzanine, accessed via a spiral staircase, looks down on the commotion and adds its own caches and eccentricities to the field of play.

The owner of this over-stuffed residence, Andrew Wyke (Ramiz Monsef), enters and we can surmise that he is preparing for a guest, and wants everything to be just right for the occasion. Wearing a scarlet smoking jacket (Shahrzad Mazaheri designed spot-on costumes), he seems poised to be a gracious host. Andrew is an enormously successful author of mystery fiction. In his writing he has devised an untold number of plots in which brilliant amateur detectives outdo the slow-witted country police in solving some odd crime or another.

Wyke's guest arrives, a younger man named Milo Tindle (John Tufts), dressed respectfully in a bright blue blazer and necktie. Milo is a travel agent based in London who recently leased a cottage close to the Wyke home. Andrew has invited his neighbor for what seems like a friendly get-acquainted visit, just the two, as Andrew's wife is away.

It doesn't take long before Andrew comes out with his real purpose for inviting Milo to meet with him, revealing to the audience that there is already a sort of backhanded relationship between the two men. Things could get ugly quickly, but civilized Andrew has a plan, one that, he opines, will leave both men better off. Milo is aghast at what Andrew proposes, plus he thinks it will never work.

From there, through two acts, the plot twists and turns, liberally doused in comedy and keeping us happily in knots as we try to guess where this will end. The comedy is more uproarious in the first act, as the second act takes a bit more somber tone with the arrival of a third character, Inspector Doppler. Still, Shaffer's dialogue continues to be sprinkled with jaunty wit. He winds up the whole business with an ending that we quite likely had not seen coming but once played out, feels altogether right. And we collectively let out the breath we hadn't realized we'd been holding.

Ramiz Monsef is made-to-order as arrogant, debonaire, and somewhat foppish Andrew Wyke. He captures the character's cool sophistication and his irritating certainty about every topic, hint of cruelty in his perspective on the human race, and more than a hint of misogyny. He has a physical exuberance that reinforces a sense of entitlement that comes with owning such a home. John Tufts is superb as Milo Tindle, a steady fellow with his feet on the ground and wholly sincere in his intent. Then, bit by bit, Tuft shows Milo's resolve weakening, as he exhibits susceptibility to Andrew's lure. As Inspector Doppler, Stanley Rushton perfectly captures the cadence of a man whose disheveled manner masks his savvy way around a crime scene. In small roles, Robin Mayfield (as Detective Sergeant Tarrant) and Liam McNulty (as Police Constable Higgs) complete the cast.

There is a note of homoeroticism between Andrew and Milo, not in the script, but in the way the characters play off one another, primarily in the way Andrew projects himself onto Milo. Some business that is in the script, nearing the end, reinforces this, though I don't know if it would seem that way without some previous intimations. Whether or not this is intended makes no difference to the narrative, but adds another layer of complexity to explore.

For the record, Anshuman Bhatia's lighting design and Jill BC Du Boff's sound design serve the play very well, each making contributions to the clockwork precision of this production.

Sleuth is one howling good time at the theater. If you don't know the play, now is the time to make its acquaintance. If you have seen it, or one of the two movie versions that have been made, hopefully your memory is sharp enough to remember how good it is, and foggy enough not to remember many of the details so you can get the most out of seeing it once more. But even if you remember every detail Senior's staging, the whip-smart performances and brilliant design make it worth a return.

Sleuth runs through May 10, 2026, at the Guthrie Theater, McGuire Proscenium Stage, 618 South 2nd Street, Minneapolis MN. For tickets and information, please call 612-377-2224 or visit GuthrieTheater.org.

Playwright: Anthony Shaffer; Director: Kimberly Senior; Scenic Designer: Todd Rosenthal; Costume Designer: Shahrzad Mazaheri; Lighting Designer: Anshuman Bhatia; Sound Designer: Jill BC Du Boff; Dramaturg: Carla Steen; Vocal Coach: Keely Wolter; Fight Director: Annie Enneking; Resident Casting Director: Jennifer Liestman; NYC Casting Consultant: McCorkle Casting, Ltd; Assistant Director: LMK Tuomanen; Stage Manager: Lyndsey R. Harter; Assistant Stage Manager: Matthew Meeks.

Cast: Robin Mayfield (Detective Sergeant Tarrant), Liam McNulty (Police Constable Higgs), Ramiz Monsef (Andrew Wyke), Stanley Rushton (Inspector Doppler), John Tufts (Milo Tindle).