By James Kenney
When I saw Campbell Scott was playing Hercule Poirot in a new theatrical adaption of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Links, I immediately bought tickets for me and the family, not knowing it was actually an hour and 45 minute drive from New York City. Well, that wasn’t going to stop us, when I and the wife had driven three hours and three hour back one night to see Scott in his one-man performance in The Alienist at the Williamstown Theater Festival. I figured we could check out Red Bank (very nice town with a well-stocked Wa Wa!) and stop by Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash while I was there (where I picked up a signed copy of Kevin Smith’s The 4:30 Movie despite not having seen it, an impulse buy I may/may not/may regret).
When I stepped into the Two River Theater for Murder on the Links, I was expecting a great performance from one of America’s truly great actors. What I got was a breezy, witty, intelligent staging of Christie’s novel (which I haven’t read). Plus that great performance.
Under the sure hand of Tony-winner Darko Tresnjak (who has adapted Links for the stage and directed the production), the 90-minute play (plus intermission) feels not so much a love letter to Agatha Christie as a love letter to theatrical ingenuity. The design elements are first rate — Alexander Dodge’s scenic work and Pablo Santiago’s lighting conspire to sustain an atmosphere that is at once elegant and nimble. One of the strengths of this staging is how it handles the shifts in time and place. The play employs flashback sequences and story-within-story devices that risk confusion but are handled with clarity and flair. The interplay of past and present, memory and investigation, gives the piece momentum. The tone remains light throughout, and while I wouldn’t say there’s a lot of tension or suspense in the production, there is a lot of charm and atmosphere.
The ensemble is uniformly good, with some heady Broadway-experienced names in the mix: Kate Baldwin as Madame Renauld, Maria Bilbao as Marthe Dubois, Hiram Delgado as Sergent de Ville, José Espinosa as Jack Renauld, Jason O’Connell as Commissary Lucien Bex, and Lauren Worsham as Madame Dubois, along with the voice of Patrick Page as the ill-fated Paul Renauld.
I’ve been a Campbell Scott fan for decades, ever since watching Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, where he gave a dead-on Robert Benchley that made him, in my house, “Tom Cruise” for a stretch: no performance unmissable. From Roger Dodger to The Dying Gaul, Singles, Dying Young, The Spanish Prisoner, Big Night, The Secret Lives of Dentists, The Exorcism of Emily Rose — and in his quieter film and stage choices — we’ve followed him even when the industry spotlight did not. (He’s long preferred work that interests him, living in the Northeast, directed occasionally, never courting mainstream fame aggressively — yet always delivering exceptional performances.). He essayed a terrific Ebinezer Scrooge in 2019’s Broadway production of A Christmas Carol, and most recently I saw him in Edward Burns’ The Millers in Marriage, which he carried with his usual quiet authority.
One evening we saw him outside the Broadway theater before Noises Off, in which he was appearing; he crashed into my wife, apologized, and was disarmingly polite, and left us all the more endeared. If it turns out he crashed into her in an effort to pick her up, well, so, he’s got great taste. Sure, this is an irrelevant aside, but when else am I going to get mileage out of it? Back to the play. In Murder on the Links, Scott brings to Poirot all his virtues to an enjoyably broad role: intelligence, restraint, wit, and a quiet but absolute command. His Poirot is never showy, never ostentatious; yet when he speaks, every line feels carved, each pause meaning something.
He is at ease with the theatricality of Poirot, yet never lets the performance feel synthetic. If one were to draw a line between him and his parents — his mother, Colleen Dewhurst, and his father, George C. Scott — one sees echoes of their gravitas. But whereas they often cut imposing figures, Campbell Scott carries authority lightly. The presence is there — the clarity, the intelligence, the depth — but with warmth, graciousness, and openness. He is more amiable than either parent’s legendary aura might suggest, yet no less formidable as an actor.
Murder on the Links is not so much a whodunit, but more a “how’d s/he do it, and how’ll s/he explain it?” — and Tresnjak’s adaptation keeps us fully engaged, even if the story is a bit creaky and the explanation rather baroque. But for me, the real reason it lands so powerfully is Campbell Scott’s Poirot. He is a revelation — not stretching to dominate, but quietly owning every moment he’s on stage. We see an actor fully in tune with his craft, guiding the story with quiet grace and letting his talent speak in whispers, not shouts. It was worth the trip.
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