Setting

So where and why on earth would ten famous Agatha Christie detectives be summoned to a remote island and be asked to portray characters from yet another Agatha Christie story?

What if it REALLY happened?

Suppose the BOOK version of ATTWN really happened. In the late summer of 1939, on a small island, off of the south coast of Devon, ten gruesome murders took place. Suppose ALL of those ten people were found dead a week later by the boatman, Fred Narracott? What if the murderer's plans went so perfectly well that they confounded Scotland Yard? The families of the victims would pressure the authorities to solve the crimes and bring the murderer to justice. With the wealthy Marston, Brent, and Wargrave families clamoring to claim or reassign inheritance from their deceased relatives, Scotland Yard would have to resort to drastic measures to solve the case.

But also understand what ELSE is happening in the world at this time. It's now late spring of 1940. Nine months have passed, and still no breaks have occurred in the case. Germany has invaded Poland and France, and Soldier Island is a prime scouting location for German aircraft crossing the Channel to bomb Britain. The Ministry of Defense seeks to claim the island, demolish the house, and build an R.A.F. lookout post there to assist in their growing battle against the Luftwaffe.

The pressure on Scotland Yard has just increased exponentially.

At the behest of the acting director for Scotland Yard's southwest sector, ten prolific detectives have been invited to the island to solve the case. Belgium's famous Mssr. Hercule Poirot, relocated now to London for wartime safety, tops the list of invitees. Accompanying him are Chief Inspector James Japp and Mr. Arthur Hastings, long time associates, as well as Ms. Ariadne Oliver, crime writer. Also high on the list is Miss Jane Marple, a brilliant forensic detective, accompanied by her nephew, mystery author Mr. Raymond West. Also invited are Miss Prudence "Tuppence" Cowley and Mr. Thomas "Tommy" Beresford, both formerly of London's famous International Detective Agency. Mr. Parker Pyne, Mr. Satterthwaite and his associate Mr. Harley Quin will also join the investigation.

The bounty on solving the murders is set at a hefty 10,000 pounds. The house has been sealed since evidence was taken in late October of 1939. An extensive collection of crime scene photographs has been captured, and is available to the detectives. Mr. West has been working with Scotland Yard to construct a timeline of events, and has compiled portfolios on the backgrounds of each of the victims. His account of the murders will serve as a baseline script as each detective takes on the role of one of the victims to re-enact the murders as they occurred. Mr. West has been granted exclusive rights to publish the story, once solved.

Given all of that, I had to find a likely locale for Soldier Island, as well as the fictional hamlet of Sticklehaven. The book suggests that the island is about a mile off of the coast, somewhere between Plymouth and Exeter. One character comments that they've not been to this part of Devon, so I sought to find an area remote enough to make that assertion plausible. Agatha Christie often vacationed on Burgh Island, a tidal island next to Bigbury, and it is believed to have been the inspiration for Indian/Soldier Island in the story. Burgh is to large and too close to land to fit the description, so I moved the fictional location further southeast along the coast to an area at the south end of Start Bay, just across the cape. Here is a mocked-up Google Map of where Sticklehaven and Soldier Island would be...

And for reference, here is a small map of the South Hams area for reference. The island would be on the small, southerly tip, in the bottom center, to the east of East Prawle...

So now, we have a setting and a driver for the story. Now, we have to weave them in seamlessly so as not to corrupt Christie's original story.

That's where I'm at now...


- Sean

Agatha Christie's Style

In my (so far) limited exposure to Agatha Christie (six or so plays; two novels; several dozen television episodes), I feel comfortable with her "typical" approach to mystery. I've found and reviewed a handful of papers, detailing a variety of aspects of her style. And I feel I know, after reading the play now a half a dozen times, and the novel twice, how she accomplishes the daunting task of suspending disbelief enough to allow latitude for a murderer to mingle with his victims without tipping his hat to anyone, especially the audience.

The problem is that this work has been seen before. As many times as I see the disclaimer in front of productions of The Mousetrap, urging audience members not to give away the plot to those who've not seen it, it still falls flat. This is both the blessing and curse of Christie's genius, in that her stories were so wonderfully engaging, that they have now all but been absorbed into the collective historical patchwork of English literature. Wikipedia itself accounts for a score of popular, modern stories that themselves meme the countdown to death device that is at the core of ATTWN. Most reality television shows use this device as well to heighten the suspense. To support the initial assertion here, just as reality shows aren't particularly entertaining after they've aired, so too tires the viewer upon repeat viewings of murder mysteries. ATTWN is, unfortunately, no exception.

So, what ELSE is interesting about Christie's style? The character dialogue, while possibly witty in it's time, is today as stale as a three-day-old bagel. In the hands of a gifted actor, the lines CAN come alive, but more often than not, they don't play well. Ah, but the CHARACTERS are interesting, particularly (as mentioned previously) as fleshed out in the novel. And in particular, her detective characters are masterfully crafted. After reviewing a brief sample of her work, I began to compile a list of the characters that most interested me. The list consisted primarily of her detective characters, but also contained several of the ancillary characters from within each of those universes.

What did that list look like? Let me just say that it was the epiphany I'd been waiting for.

The list of my favorite Christie characters was as follows:

• Parker Pyne - Male, 30-40 years old
• Ariadne Oliver - Female, 30-40 years old
• Prudence Cowley (Tuppence) - Female, 30-40 years old
• Thomas Beresford (Tommy) - Male, 30-40 years old
• Raymond West - Male, 20-30 years old
• Chief Inspector James Japp - Male, 40-50 years old
• Arthur Hastings - Male, 50-60 years old
• Miss Marple - Female, 50-60 years old
• Hercule Poirot - Male, 50-60 years old
• Mr. Satterthwaite - Male, 30-40 years old
• Harley Quin (Quin) - Male, 20-30 years old

Hmmm. Eleven characters: eight male and three female. Just like ATTWN.

Freaky.

And the ages matched up as well to the play's characters, assuming ATTWN occurred in 1938-1939:

• Rogers / Parker Pyne - Male, 30-40 years old
• Mrs. Rogers / Ariadne Oliver - Female, 30-40 years old
• Vera Claythorne / Prudence Cowley (Tuppence) - Female, 30-40 years old
• Philip Lombard / Thomas Beresford (Tommy) - Male, 30-40 years old
• Anthony Marston / Raymond West - Male, 20-30 years old
• William Blore / Chief Inspector James Japp - Male, 40-50 years old
• General Mackenzie / Arthur Hastings - Male, 50-60 years old
• Emily Brent / Miss Marple - Female, 50-60 years old
• Sir Lawrence Wargrave / Hercule Poirot - Male, 50-60 years old
• Dr. Armstrong / Mr. Satterthwaite - Male, 30-40 years old
• Fred Narracott / Harley Quin (Quin) - Male, 20-30 years old

You can find details on who each of the detective characters are on Wikipedia, but suffice it to say that their demeanor and character drivers line up very cleverly with one another.

So how is it that these ten famous detectives within Christie's universe find themselves on this remote island, portraying ten OTHER characters from the Christie universe?

That's for the next post.


- Sean

Approach

What always seems the most engaging to me as an audience member is when I have a vested interest in what happens to a character on stage. I don't get that connection in many of the shows I see, but when I do, it is magical. In fact, I'd rather see ten "bad" productions, so long as I know that I might have the chance to see something wonderful from a single actor in just one scene of any of them. To be quite honest, I see MORE of this "magic" happen in live community theatre productions than I do in most standard network television or at the movies.

So, given that ATTWN is a 65 year old work, written in a style that is almost dead, supplanted now by slasher movies that claim to be "horror," how do we make it relevant enough to give actors (who KNOW how to engage themselves, each other, and an audience) something to sink their teeth into?

I didn't know, honestly.

First, a bit of history. ATTWN was originally released under the title Ten Little Niggers, then renamed to And Then There Were None, and then renamed to Ten Little Indians (much better, huh?), and retitled BACK to And Then There Were None for the most recent revival of the play in London for the winter 2005 season in the West End. The Christie Estate reviewed the suggested changes to the script, and adopted them as THE canonical version. The most noticeable changes involve the nursery rhyme, now reworded to tell the tale of ten little soldier boys. The setting was also changed to Soldier Island rather than Indian Island, and several of the verbal colloquialisms, such as the "...nigger in the woodpile..." reference were sanitized so that all audiences could enjoy the suspense of the show rather than dwell on the superfluous racist content that added nothing to the plot.

But, as suggested by most of the critics reviewing the 2005 revival, the story falls flat. The director's attempts to sensationalize parts of the script were mostly panned. For instance, when the first victim, young socialite Anthony Marston is poisoned, he literally projectile vomits onstage, soaking several of the characters. I imagine it was surprising, and shocking, and, well, very theatrical, but it tried too hard to make the play something it CAN'T be: sensational.

Again, I didn't know what our production was yet to be, but, I had some ideas...

What DOES work, actually, is Agatha Christie's novelization of the story. As with most good novelizations, it fleshes out the characters nicely, and allows the reader to be transported off of the static set of the play to other locales. In speaking with another colleague, Michael Jordan (not THAT one), he reworked the ending of the play in his production to kill off the final two characters. That's a bit dark, but there was something in the novel that intrigued me.

What intrigued me was the "final scene" in the novel, where the detective and assistant commissioner try to unravel (unsuccessfully) the sequence of the murders. To cap it off, an epilogue is included that suggests a note, stuffed in a bottle by the murderer, confessing and detailing the entire course of events. This bottle is discovered some time later by a fishing vessel, and the note is forwarded to Scotland Yard to close the case. This is where I started to see a glimmer of hope: if I could intertwine the story of the murders with the quest to solve it, I might be able to double the suspense, double the intrigue, and have a device for insulating a somewhat dated script from the audience when it does not serve it's purpose.

Bingo.

Next up, I research Agatha Christie's writing style, and how her detective characters (which ATTWN is essentially lacking) drive the story forward. I also research the timeframe in which the story was written, as well as the real-world elements that affected her writing style, themes, and settings.


- Sean

Opening Post

Welcome to the opening blog entry for Conejo Players Theatre 2007 Production of Agatha Christie's mystery classic, And Then There Were None. Just as my colleague Shawn Lanz has wisely condensed his reference to his production of Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol down to a simple JMCC, I to have decided to condense my references down to ATTWN.

Back in May of this year (2006), I was asked to submit a show I'd like to direct to the CPT Board for review. I was knee deep in the middle of ETC's production of Godspell, so I stole a few minutes away from that to give some consideration about what I might want to do next, directorially. If I was accepted, I knew I'd be doing a CAT (Conejo Afternoon Theatre) show, a required "trial" run for all new directors, so I had a pretty good sense of what would probably be in the realm of "acceptable" material. Now, that's not to say that CPT isn't willing to take risks on new and exciting work, but they do need to address their core audience. The most fantastic, avant garde work in the world is useless if no one comes to see it (or more specifically, WANTS to come see it).

So, the first class of shows that came off my list were the newer shows I've been reading: blue/orange, The Pillowman, Doubt, Closer. They are all great shows, but not quite what I want to take on my first time directing with a new group. Eventually, maybe, but not right now. The second class of shows that came off the list were the musicals I've been curious about, not so much because they wouldn't be acceptable, but rather because their production would be severely constrained by budget. Again, eventually, but not right now.

So, I was left with a group of oddly mismatched shows, that oddly fell into two categories: mysteries and pre-revolutionary Russian farces. I'd been involved with a production of Ten Little Indians (now retitled And Then There Were None) over twenty years ago with the Wyandotte Players, a group based in the now KCKJC in Kansas City Kansas, where I spent my pre-college years. I liked the premise of the script, and although the dialogue, now, seems VERY stale, it still has the ability to send chills down your spine. I also considered The Mousetrap and a few others, but stuck with ATTWN as my first submission. I also submitted The Inspector General by Gogol, Adam, The Creator and R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), both by the brothers Capek. The relevance of the political corruption (and stupidity) featured in those works is so relevant to today's state of affairs, I knew I'd like to explore that. In the end ATTWN was chosen.

And what was especially cool and foresighted of the CPT Board was to pair my production in repertory with their Mainstage production of Angel Street (a.k.a. Gaslight), another classic mystery, directed by my friend Arryck Adams. My offer went out immediately to Arryck to design and build his set, funneling as much of my resources for ATTWN into his. We both need a large, static set, so to simplify change-over procedures, I decided one, solid design handled by the same designer would work exceptionally well. As luck would have it, Celeste Russi, director of the production of ...Forum that I'm in now is directing the Conejo Players Children's Theatre production of Schoolhouse Rock, LIVE! hitting the boards just before our two shows go up. She too could benefit from a similar sort of set, and I'd promised her I'd assist there as well.

So that's where we're at currently. I've read the script four times, and I'm going through the novel for the second time. In the next few postings, I'll detail my approach to the production.


- Sean