Psychological Mystery ‘An Inspector Calls’ Opens HTC Season

When Susan Galardi received an invitation to audition for the Hampton Theatre Company’s production of “An Inspector Calls”—written by J.B. Priestley in 1945, but set in 1912—she half-heartedly picked up the script, expecting it to be a polite, English drawing room drama.Not only was she wrong, she was immediately entranced.

“I couldn’t put it down,” she recalled on Monday during a telephone interview. “I just thought it was so intriguing, and I wanted to know what was happening.”

At the most basic level, the plot is as follows: The prosperous Arthur and Sybil Birling are spending a happy evening celebrating the engagement of their daughter, Sheila, to the both socially and financially suitable Gerald Croft when the mysterious Inspector Goole appears, claiming to be investigating a shocking suicide.

But there is much more brewing beneath the surface, according to director Sarah Hunnewell, who adapted the script for the Hampton Theatre Company run, which opens Thursday night, October 22, at Quogue Community Hall.

“People are coming expecting an Agatha Christie. This is going to be a surprise for them, because that’s not what this is,” she said on Monday during a telephone interview. “It’s described as a mystery-thriller—and it is, but not in a conventional sense. It’s much more radical than that, profound. We can’t wait to open and see how people react.”

Priestley, who was known in his time as a socialist—though some regarded him as a “pipe-smoking, lusty, intellectual, quiet type,” Ms. Hunnewell said—wrote “An Inspector Calls” with a great deal of subtext and experimentation that was vastly misunderstood until English director Stephen Daldry rediscovered the play in 1992. He dusted it off and polished it up, revealing its bright colors underneath, Ms. Hunnewell said.

“He’s responsible for pulling it out of the mothballs, where it was for some time,” she said. “It takes place on the evening the Titanic sank, and the day after is when the storyline of ‘Downton Abbey’ begins—which is significant in the fact that, before, it was the absolute pinnacle of British success. It was the height of the Edwardian era. Everything was right with the world for a certain class, but terrible for another class. There were enormous strikes in Britain that were becoming very worrisome to the ruling class, and who knows if they were moving in the direction of revolution, had World War I not come and changed people’s focus.”

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the play’s premiere in 1945—not long after World War II ended, Ms. Hunnewell pointed out.

“As with any major war effort, there is a democratizing effect, where people of all classes worked shoulder to shoulder,” she said. “World War II was a case of that, when women were working side by side with men to save Britain from Hitler. J.B. Priestley raised the question of whether the country would go back to Edwardian-type business as usual, or whether the world would become a more egalitarian place and move toward a great communal project.”

It is an interesting choice to stage on the East End, Ms. Hunnewell mused, given the enormous wealth in the Hamptons and Priestley’s scathing views of high society. But within that, there is depth, which Ms. Galardi has found in her portrayal of Sybil Birling.

“It’s a very cathartic role, I’ll say that. It is such a meaty role to jump into and different from anything I’ve ever done,” Ms. Galardi said. “My background is comedy and musicals. But I loved her character. There are opposing poles in her character. She is very prideful but also tremendously fearful. She’s sharp as a tack, but she’s in complete denial.”

That denial is Sybil Birling’s soft spot, according to Ms. Galardi, who made a choice not to play her as an “iron maiden matriarch.” Instead, she found her humanity.

“We’ve all faced denial of things we do not want to see. We do not want to see the truth,” she said. “So we hold tight to our own beliefs, even when everything in front of you is saying, ‘No, this isn’t the way it is.’ This is her key, to where I could understand her as a person.”

The Hampton Theatre Company will open “An Inspector Calls” on Thursday, October 22, at 7 p.m. at Quogue Community Hall. Performances will continue through Sunday, November 8, on Thursdays and Fridays at 7 p.m., Saturdays at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. Tickets are $30, $25 for seniors, except Saturdays, and $10 for students under age 21. For more information, call (631) 653-8955, or visit hamptontheatre.org.