There is something nostalgic about watching a classic thriller that trusts its audience. Such is Shaw Festival’s new production of Anthony Shaffer’s 1970 psychological nail-biter Sleuth. The first production to play the newly reconstructed Court House Theatre, it handles the play’s cat-and-mouse game with style, maturity, and a sense of place.
The plot follows Andrew Wyke, a smug, self-satisfied mystery novelist, who invites Milo Tindale to his country manor. The meeting is ostensibly civilized but tinged with menace from the first exchange. Wyke knows that Tindale is sleeping with his wife. What Tindale does not yet know is how his host intends to use that information. From there, Shaffer’s script unfolds like a series of Russian nesting dolls, with each apparent conclusion revealing something darker and more destabilizing within.
Patrick Galligan is perfectly cast as the voluble Wyke, bringing the unhurried authority of a sinister man who believes himself to be the cleverest person in any room. He navigates the role’s considerable tonal range with relish and menace, without ever losing the character’s internal logic. Opposite him, understudy Savion Roach (stepping in for Sepehr Reybod at the performance I saw) brings texture to Tindale. Where the role might easily reduce to that of an unworthy foil, Roach finds intelligence and wounded dignity in the younger man, making the power shifts between the two figures feel matched and genuine.
The Court House Theatre proves to be an inspired choice of venue for this production. Designer Sim Suzer has filled the stage with props and period details that speak to the owner’s vanity. A life-sized animatronic ventriloquist dummy named Jack Tar, whose laughter can be triggered by a button on Wyke’s desk, adds a grotesquely comedic layer of Stephen King-esque menace. The checkerboard floor and coffee table underscore the play’s central preoccupation with strategy, game-playing, and a shifting upper hand. Sound designer John Gzowski’s practical effects, including gunshots and a small explosion, along with atmospheric music are deployed with precision.
Director Peter Fernandes has staged the action to leverage the room’s intimacy to full effect. Seated close enough to register every flicker of expression, the audience occupies the uncomfortable position of voyeur: we are effectively spying, through Wyke’s window, at something private and increasingly unsettling. Fernandes, renowned at the Festival as a comedic performer (in productions such as the 2024 production of One Man, Two Guvnors and this season’s One for the Pot) makes a persuasive directorial debut here. He knows precisely when to draw out the dark comedy lurking in Shaffer’s text … and when to go for the jugular. His directorial choices sustain tension here in ways that a larger venue might not permit.
Without offering spoilers, Shaffer’s premise poses at least one enormous technical challenge for any production of the play. This production’s degree of success in pulling it off is, I think, in the eye of the individual audience member, and it will greatly influence their enjoyment. Additionally, certain language and attitudes conveyed in Shaffer’s text carry the particular patina of their era, which a contemporary audience will notice. The racial slurs in particular are not incidental: they serve as character revelation, establishing the depths of Wyke’s cruelty. But whether every instance is dramatically necessary is a question the production leaves to the audience. Fernandes does not pretend otherwise, nor does he dwell on it. And the decision to press forward on the strength of the material’s theatricality is, on balance, reasonable.
Sleuth is ultimately the kind of production which the Shaw Festival tends to do exceedingly well: a tightly constructed, carefully performed historical piece of theatrical architecture … staged immersively, with a rich tonal palette and a whimsical sense of occasion. This entertaining night at the theatre provides a fitting inauguration for a rebuilt venue that boasts a great deal of its own history.
Sleuth runs until October 9, 2026 at the Shaw Festival’s Court House Theatre. Tickets and additional information are available at shawfest.com.
© Arpita Ghosal, Sesaya Arts Magazine 2026
