Agatha Christie’s durable “Mousetrap,” running continuously in London since 1952, is onstage at Lawrence Community Theatre, and both first-time viewers and veterans of other performances will enjoy watching the ingenious plot unfold once more. The cast, directed by Michael Doll, keeps the audience guessing whodunit until the end. Jack Riegle’s set could not look more like an English guest house, complete with fireplace and wainscoting. Annette Cook’s costumes reinforce each character’s personality well.

Catherine Skorupski is convincing as Mollie Ralston, Monkswell Manor’s rather nervous hostess on her first day of business. She also makes Mollie believable as a recently married wife who becomes unsure of her husband Giles, played by Chris Price. He elicits sympathy from the audience as a young husband whose new business venture turns into a nightmare.

Detective Sergeant Trotter, who appears at the snowbound house to solve the crime, is played by Mark Mackie. Less peremptory than one might expect a policeman to be, Mackie achieves subtle nuances in his character’s ongoing frustration with the residents’ reticence and general unwillingness to cooperate. In this very English play, he also handles the dialect best of any of the cast.

Jane Malin as Mrs. Boyle is wonderfully frumpy and grumpy, finding fault with the manor’s furniture, heating, meals, inexperience, and other guests — and the audience kept hoping for her to find something else to object to, because she did it with such a fine deadpan comic sense.

Charles Decedue nicely plays a calm, common-sense Major Metcalf, albeit with a little less gruffness than a Kiplingesque British Army officer. Yet his cool unwillingness to be hectored by Sergeant Trotter sets his character apart very credibly.

The character of Christopher Wren, described in the script as “neurotic,” “artistic,” and “almost childish,” is normally played as stereotypically effeminate, with lines like “My dears, how melodramatic. He’s very attractive, isn’t he? I do admire the police.” Joshua Chaikin forgoes the mincing approach and instead plays the part with a mad, frantic energy that perhaps increases his value as a criminal suspect but at times seems at odds with the lines.

Tom Jerome as Mr. Paravicini has just the catlike moves and smiling leers that the character requires. Jerome plays the part in a cheery, upbeat manner — engaging, but perhaps missing some of the sinister menace expected of this one unplanned and rather mysterious guest.

Mousetrap actors, from left, Catherine Skorupski, as Mollie Ralston; Christopher Price as Giles Ralston; and Tom Jerome, as Mr. Paravicini, rehearse. The play opened Friday.

Kendra Verhage turns in a solid performance as Miss Casewell: self-possessed, dogmatic and butchy. She delivers her cool assessments of Mr. Paravicini and Mrs. Boyle with an aplomb that establishes her character perfectly.

Despite the efforts of good dialect coaches Thelma Helyar and Roberta Spires, British speech did not roll convincingly from the tongues of many in the cast. Midwestern diphthongs aplenty, and regular pronunciations such as “twunty” (we do say it that way in these parts) rather than “twenty” somewhat marred the illusion of place. Opening-night jitters were evident in a few missed cues, and the pace needed picking up, with needless pauses during dialogue.