Theater: Detection Kit the Mystery of Edwin Drood

by Rupert Holmes

Charles Dickens died having finished only half of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, and that tantalizing incompleteness has prompted countless attempts to round off the novel's Gothic plot. The story echoes Dickens' familiar themes of unspoken sexual obsession, middle-class hypocrisy and the crushing burden of guilty secrets. It also contains some of his wittiest portraits of pomp and vanity. Fans of the book will look in vain for more than vague resemblances in the amiable musical version that opened on Broadway last week. Composer- Author Rupert Holmes has framed Drood within a Victorian music-hall pastiche, and the actors play both Dickens'...

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