Alexander House hosts murder mystery

With a flair for the original, brothers Mikhail Rostislavovich and Dwight Tostenson opened up their home, the Alexander House of Waseca, on Friday and Saturday, November 15 and 16 for a Murder Mystery Fundraiser that already has people speculating about a repeat performance sometime in the future.

 

Rostislavovich, who wrote the scenario and scripts with the help of Deb Bently, capitalized on the scandal of the (previous) century to raise money for the Waseca Exchange Club's Youth Scholarships. His inspiration came partly from the age of the house, which was built in 1916, and partly from his own Russian family background.

 

The scenario takes place in St. Petersburg, Russia, where the last Emperor of Russia, Tsar Nicholas II, and his wife, Grand Duchess Alexandra Feodorovna, are witnessing the beginning of the end of the 200 year reign of the Romanov family. Though the royal couple were absent on Friday and Saturday evening, due to their son's sudden hemophiliac attack, the people remaining at the palace have problems of their own; Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich has been found murdered, and no one knows who did it, what the murder weapon was, or even where it was done. Chief Inspector Pytor Durnovo, played by Waseca County Sheriff Jay Dulas, was on the scene in an instant, sealing off the house to prevent the murderer from escaping, although one member of the household, the Cossack Guard Timofey, has escaped by leaping from the second floor balcony. With the famed efficiency of the police force, Durnovo has already eliminated most of the palace residents as suspects in the heinous act, but which of the other five did it? Or was it the absconded Timofey?

 

On Saturday alone, as equerry Agafya Constantinova (Deb Bently) guided them to the door, “Prince” Mikhail Rostislavovich, played by himself, ushered more than 200 guests into the historic Waseca estate to aid Durnovo in his mission to serve justice.

 

On their way into the front hall, the guests passed by Prime Minister Pytor Stolypin, played by Carroll Galvin, as he desperately tries to call out on a dead telephone in the Bell Room. In a corner by the stairs Countess Natalia Brasova (Ann Fitch) weeps because, despised by the family, she is forbidden to marry her beloved Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, with whom she has had a long-term liaison.

 

In the backyard Summer House, Rostislavovich gave guests a run-down of the situation, as well as a helpful Clue Sheet to help them solve the crime.

 

Back inside, the improvisatory sleuths stumble into the middle of a conversation between Princess Zinaida Yusupov (Jeanne Sexton) and dramatist Konstantin Stanislavski (Mark Butterfield), who displays philistine lack of taste in a rant about the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff, the famous composer and virtuoso pianist, who debuts his Concerto No. 2 in C Minor in the adjoining room. Yusupov declares his conversation tedious as she reminds him that there has been a murder in the house.

 

Nearby, it is impossible not to overhear two ladies, Countess Anastasia Hendrikova (Robin Dulas) and Princess Irina Yusupov (Anna Pollak) discussing scandal in the Withdrawing Room.

 

Behind them, Attorney Vasily Maklakov, recently appointed Ambassador to Paris (Nathanael Andrs, avid Waseca High School Theater performer), is engaged in verbal altercation with Prince Felix Yusupov, one of the wealthiest members of the Russian aristocracy (recently elected State House Representative Tom Sexton). As the two accuse each other of treachery, they suddenly discover that they are observed, and tell the guests to “Move along!”

 

In the dining room, Peter Carl Faberge (Brad Donner), jeweler to the royal family, displays a blood red, jewel encrusted egg that he has recently created for the Tsarina to her Lady-in-Waiting Anna Vyrubova (Kris Butterfield). In the adjoining kitchen, the cook (Diana Hermanek) declares in a thick Russian accent that it couldn't possibly have been so-and-so, while the scullery boy, Ivan (ten-year-old Lincoln Hermanek) skulks on the servant's stairs to the basement, trying to find an opportune moment to hide the blowgun that he inexplicably carries.

 

In each case visitors had the opportunity to interview witnesses in order to tick off items on their Clue Sheet.

 

Dimitri Rostislavovich (Dwight Tostenson) guides guests to appropriate rooms on the second floor, where Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna (Christy Easton), the Tsar's sister, writes to her mother, the Dowager Dagmar of Denmark. Down the hall, the Governess, Sasha Tegleva (Grace Galvin) has been told by the inspector to guard the many weapons in the room: a monkey blowgun and a number of swords, one of which is missing. The Governess declares she heard a scream, and brings attention to the Cossack Guard hat lying on the floor, which at first she took to be an animal. Is it a clue, or a red herring? At the other end of the hall, the second floor maid (Caitlin Roberts, who occasionally teaches art classes at the Waseca Art Center) has found an ax head that she decides to hide under her sewing. Being only a maid, she won't talk unless directly addressed.

 

Having already questioned witnesses in the basement and the lower two floors, guests have yet to encounter the palace's most disconcerting tenant, Grigori Rasputin (Chris Bently, Deb Bently's son), the mystic monk who ostensibly treats the Tsar's son for his blood disorder, and loudly accosts visitors with, “Infidels! This is a place of prayer!” Once they flee his presence, the guests make their way to the opposite end of the third floor, where they find a white-habited, frightened nun counting rosary beads. She is Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna (Waseca Art Center president Missy Donner), whose husband's murder by Bolsheviks has resulted in her escape into a life of prayer.

 

Somehow, in questioning each of these witnesses and suspects, guests were tasked with solving the life-sized game of Clue within one hour, at which point a gong sounded, and they all gathered again in the Summer House, where champagne, sparkling grape juice and appetizers awaited. Once there, Rostislavovich demanded silence for a moment with the request that visitors divulge their results as to murderer, weapon, and room.

 

Although, according to Tostenson, the puzzle wasn't meant to be difficult, none of the four slightly altered mysteries over the weekend were entirely solved, yet that didn't stop guests from enjoying the fun. For one family at least, the event was most timely; Stephanie Bonneur of the Twin Cities area, and Jennifer Rosenthal of Salt Lake City, Utah surprised their mother, Janet Possehl, on her birthday with a Murder Mystery. They and several others enthusiastically declared their willingness to play the role of detective in the future, should the brothers Rostislavovich and Tostenson be open to staging another murder at the Alexander House. Maybe next time the murderer won't get away with it.