The line separating the stage and the audience will be blurred, corpses will be in view and the classic "whodunit" question will be asked this weekend when members of No Refund Theatre (NRT) perform The Real Inspector Hound.

The Tom Stoppard play The Real Inspector Hound centers on two theater critics watching a murder/mystery show take place in an old English country house during the 1930s.

Bad weather traps a myriad of stereotypical characters in the house, such as the nosy maid, the Sherlock Holmes-like "detective," the snobby womanizer and, of course, a dead body in plain view -- which nobody in the house notices.

Eventually the critics find themselves inside the same play they were watching, replacing two of the characters. The play starts again from the beginning, and the other characters don't notice the change.

Mike Ross (freshman-theatre) plays Birdboot, one of the critics, and said the character he portrays is able to "call the shots" around his new environment onstage because of his extensive theater knowledge.

Ted Chylack (junior-film and video) is directing the show and describes it as a spoof of an Agatha Christie novel. With its stock characters and predictable storyline, the play is also a farcical take on the traditional murder-mystery, complete with the exaggerated British accents and costumes.

NRT President Ryan Simmons (junior-media studies), who plays Inspector Hound, said the eccentric characters in the house allow the formula of the traditional murder/mystery to be exposed.

Like another of Stoppard's plays, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Real Inspector Hound explores fate and the concept of free will, Chylack said. He said the play's focus is definitely on the critics themselves and not the terrible play they went to watch.

Chylack also said the play-within-a-play element allows for theater, as an artform, to be spoofed.

"[People] involved in or who know theater would appreciate a lot of the jokes," he said, also noting that the over-the-top nature of the production gives the actors a lot of room to have fun by ad-libbing and playing around with their characters.

Brian Ott (sophomore-film and video) is returning to a role he played in high school: Simon Gascoyne, who he describes as a stuck-up Englishman and "a guy you wouldn't trust."

Birdboot eventually replaces Simon onstage and assumes his role, which he said is interesting because their characters have a unique parallel. Birdboot has had an affair with one of the play-within-a-play's actresses, while Simon has had an affair with the same woman, except in character form.

After anxiously waiting to tryout in the Chambers Building lobby this semester -- his first at University Park -- Ott said he's felt really comfortable in the new environment.

"I never think, 'Ugh, play practice,' when I have to go," he said. "I know I'm going to have fun, and you really can't ask for more when you're trying to put on a play."

Simmons said shows in this genre are not uncommon for NRT, adding a murder/mystery is usually put on once a semester, although The Real Inspector Hound is unique.

"They're a staple for community theater," he said. "It's really a bizarre send-up for the murder/mystery we usually do."