Review by Ken Chisholm

Eric Letcher is a talented actor, director, playwright, and fiction writer, but if that’s not keeping him busy enough he can start another career as an adept murder mystery writer. Letcher has penned, directed, and acts in the latest murder mystery tour presentation running this summer on Thursday evenings at the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site. 

The Condemned features strong characters performed by a strong cast, the most sharply devised mystery of this popular series, and a smart and mostly effective tweaking of the mystery tour formula.

The premise is ingeniously concocted: Madame DeBarolet (Lindsay Thompson)–after some judiciously applied torture by the Fortress’s official executioner, Michel Vescot (Eric W. Letcher)–has confessed to skewering her abusive husband with his own sword and has been condemned to death. The audience, who the other characters believe are there to enjoy a good hanging in the morning, gathers in the King’s Bastion Chapel where they meet all the interested parties: Adelle Madame Vescot (Jenna Lahey) who also was tortured by M. Vescot before he married her and who seems to form an inappropriately close friendship with Private LaGuerre (Rory Andrews ); Madame Doiron (Kathleen O’Toole ) an upper class lady who is friend of “The Condemned” as well as the dashing and acerbic English officer, Lt. John Emery (Mark Delaney); and the intrepid Sgt. Dominique Bellefond (Aaron Corbett) who enlists the audience to hunt through the town for Madame DeBarolet after she inexplicably escapes from her locked cell.

The Condemned continues Thursday evenings through the rest of the summer at the Fortress of Louisbourg. When you go see it, wear comfortable shoes, bring warm clothes, and watch your back-just in case.