Invisible Theatre Takes On Agatha Christie's Classic Mystery 'The Mousetrap.' By Margaret Regan THERE'S A REASON people like mysteries so much. The way P.D. James sees it, the murder mystery is all about the restoration of order to a disorderly world. As she once explained on TV's Mystery after a broadcast of one of her Dalgliesh stories, the discovery and punishment of the killer sets the world to rights again. The mystery story packages up life's uncertainties into a tidy parcel. Unlike real life, the classic mystery has no loose ends. No one would compare the late Agatha Christie with the far darker and more cerebral James, but James' theory also holds true for Christie's sunnier works. A fine local production of the famous Christie play The Mousetrap, now at Invisible Theatre, shows how. The world's most popular mystery play, now in its 44th consecutive year of an unstoppable run in London, The Mousetrap was first conceived in the dark days after World War II as a radio play. This humorous whodunit has all the Christie staples: the isolated English country manor house, a crowd of eccentric strangers thrown together, a murderer who's killed once and intends to kill twice more, an ending with a twist. It's all great fun. There's the grumpy old woman Mrs. Boyle (Carol Albert); the flamboyant young architect Christopher Wren (Jonathan Ingbretson); the mysterious Miss Casewell (Amy Lehman) who lives abroad; the retired English Army major (Lee J. Stubbs); a gregarious Italian (Manny Ferris) who irritates everybody with his foreignness. There's even a dashing young police sergeant who braves a blizzard to arrive on skis. Yet flowing beneath this cheerful formula are disturbing undercurrents. The two world wars and the loss of the Empire had unalterably changed old England when this play was written, and its eight characters reflect the uncertainty of the new age. The newlywed young couple who inherited Monkswell Manor, Mollie and Giles Ralston (Missie Hinske and Ross Hellwig) are obliged to take in paying guests to make ends meet. The days of the great estates are no more. Servants, too, are impossible to come by, much to the disgust of Mrs. Boyle. And as the Ralstons admit under questioning by the imperious Sergeant Trotter (Tom Toomey), on hand to prevent a recurrence of murder, they have no way of knowing who their guests really are. Worse, as Trotter points out to Mollie, she and her husband don't even know much about each other. They met and married within three weeks, a pair of individuals without any families to speak of. With the loss of traditional social structures--the vigilant parents, the nosy parson--each person is free to invent herself or himself. ("You don't know anything about me!" a distressed Mollie cries out to her husband.) It's into just such a fluid society that murderers can easily insinuate themselves. Any of the eight inmates of the manor could be the culprit. These free-floating modern anxieties percolate up into Christie's work, which is not to say the IT production is in the least bit tense. Rather, as directed by IT associate producer Deborah Dickey, it's a breezy, entertaining affair. The team of local actors, bravely tackling English accents, work seamlessly together though they get a bit of a slow start. It may be the fault of the play, which begins with each character arriving one by one at the manor. But the pace picks up with the arrival of the final guest, the Italian, Mr. Paravicini, who is turned out in a funny, over-the-top performance by Manny Ferris. Toomey, who was in IT's Censored last spring, does a suitably intense police sergeant. Amy Lehman as the dry Miss Casewell has perfected the eloquent raised eyebrow. Designer James Blair has constructed a suitably English house, all dark woods and comfy chairs and dog paintings, though given the limitations of the tiny IT stage, it comes across as more middle class than manor. Still, it works just fine as the "mousetrap," in which a killer obsessed with the song "Three Blind Mice" intends to catch some prey. Luckily for the audience, though the play's been around for ages, Christie forbade the story to be sold to the movies as long as the London run continued. So though they can reasonably expect the restoration of the social order, theatregoers will be shocked by just how Christie springs her trap. The Mousetrap continues through Sunday, December 1, at Invisible Theatre, 1400 N. First Ave. There will be no performance on Thursday, November 28. Showtime is 8 p.m. Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $12.50 for the Wednesday show, $15 for all others. For more information call 882-9721.

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