Day 45: Witness for the Prosecution, by Agatha Christie

In this play we have a marked shift in where the action takes place. Most of Christie's stories so far have followed a group of people, in varying states of being cut off from the world in which one (or more) of them are killed on stage. This time we start with an accusation and arrest, and the action is split between the courtroom and associated legal offices as the case unfolds. Central to the story are a seemingly innocent man and his apparently compulsively lying wife. There are so many shifts and changes, holes and mismatches that it's almost impossible to see where the blame is going to eventually lie. I don't tend to follow cleverly-delivered lies all that well anyway, but I was left still entirely unsure what the truth of the situation really was by the end. It's possible it may have been clearer in performance.

Day 43: The Mousetrap, by Agatha Christie (day 44 again spent travelling)

I first saw this play with my grandmother many years ago, since it's so long-running (I think at the time it may have been celebrating 45 or 50 years, it's now into the 60th anniversary tour) and while I don't remember much about seeing it then, I certainly enjoyed reading the script. It's interesting that the play shares a name with the play-within-a-play from Hamlet... and a brief look at the introductory notes mentions that in fact Christie named her play in honour of that, as the original title of the radio play (from which the stage show grew) was Three Blind Mice, a title already attributed to a different play.

For the sake of those who haven't seen it, I will take to heart the traditional request (not included in the script, but mentioned in the notes and something I do feel like I might remember from having seen it) that the secret not be given away. It seems entirely reasonable that the longest continuously running show in history should keep a bit of mystery about it. There are plenty of shows and films with various prizes attributed to them, but not many can boast Guinness records, and The Mousetrap has - technically - four (though one of those was essentially a new certificate for longest running production presented at the 50th anniversary gala production).

Of itself there's perhaps not much to say, as with her other plays, Christie has provided varied characters with deep backstories, a meticulously detailed setting and plenty of twists in the tale. Once again, a joy to read (and as it turned out, a pleasant way to spent a dismally rainy afternoon).

Day 42: The Hollow, by Agatha Christie (Day 41 was spent travelling and not much else)

Attempting to get back on track in time for the new year, today's play was The Hollow. More little twists in this one than the previous Christie plays, and a lot of obvious nods to genre clichés before turning them aside and going in a different direction - the victim didn't die instantly, the name he cried out in his death throes wasn't the killer, the butler was accused but didn't do it... and so on. I continue to find her style wonderfully easy to read and follow. Once again there was a huge amount of detail put into describing the set, but the entirety of the action remains in that one place and everything listed is eventually required by at least a couple of lines of dialogue during the course of the story.

Once again, Christie has written in complex and interesting backstories for all of the characters, some of them clearly designed to be red herrings to the mystery. On in particular - an apparently "conviniently timed" proposal turns out to be genuinely meant rather than a handy cover story as the other characters suspect. Yet another cliché twisted.

There are a couple of characters who would appeal to me to play, in particular Midge and Gerda, who seem to have far deeper characters than almost anyone else on stage even notices in them. Playing with those layers is always interesting, and while it's reasonably common to see those deeper motivations shared with the audience but not the other characters, here there's a lot of depth revealed very late on which explains earlier actions, so playing the character would require having that extra layer hidden under the surface all the way through, maybe showing in the way certain lines are said or a meaningful glance, there to see if you know what to look for but not so obvious that the reveal is lost.

Day 40: Thursday/Boxing Day is a day off.

Day off, but not without it's useful moments. I've been talking a lot about what it is I'm doing and why, what I've been reading and generally starting to get a handle on who I am. All that aside, we also had a family game combining elements of Charades, taboo/articulate and just a minute, which was entertaining but also a useful bit of practice in creative communication - round one, you can say anything but the name you're trying to convey, round two you can use one word only, and round three is normal charades, but using the same set of names for each round so there's a memory element as well, which mostly comes into play for more obscure choices which weren't entirely familiar to everyone playing.

Tomorrow should be back to business as usual. Merry Christmas everyone!

Day 38/39 - (Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!) The Winter's Tale, by William Shakespeare

I'm not sure if it was the distractions of the season or something about the play itself, but I found it hard to follow the story in any detail as I was reading this. I definitely remember "doing" this one in English class at school, but don't recall much of the story from then either. A cursory scan of the notes (Arden Shakespeare edition) point to the play being a retelling, in some parts almost verbatim, of a romance story available in print at the time of writing called Pandosto.

Being so aware as I was reading that I wasn't really following the plot isn't necessarily a bad thing - as with every Shakespeare play I will revisit it later, hopefully at least once on stage, and what bits of the notes I read have me interested in learning more. As for what I did follow, There's a complicated story of a family split apart by jealousy, forbidden love, episodes of "rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated" and an eventual scene of reconciliation where everyone gets their happy ending. The plot skeleton isn't all that far removed from that of Cymbeline when broken down like that, and I've seen multiple references to many of his latter plays having a certain flavour.

I think I'd probably be remiss in writing a review of The Winter's Tale without mentioning that infamous stage direction involving a man rather suddenly (and conveniently, to the plot), being chased down and eaten by a bear. I suspect that the original story might have provided a little more explanation, or at least may have established that the area might be populated by bears. There's also the point that in Shakespeare's time bear baiting was a public spectacle almost as popular as the theatre, at least when he was starting out. There were several venues that actually hosted both, so it's not entirely impossible that they may have been able to get a real bear on stage.

Day 37: Appointment With Death, by Agatha Christie

The next installment of holiday murder mysteries, this time on holiday in Jerusalem. This one has similarly detailed set requirements, the more I think about that I suspect it's a hangover from the majority of Christie's work being prose rather than script. There is one character with a written dialect accent, which normally annoys me but it's kept to just a minimum required to remind the reader of the accent, so it doesn't slow things down too much. I do sort of feel like it should be left to the actor rather than written in, in general.

Once again I find myself drawn into interesting character backstories and clever twists. This time we're really not given any pathos for the victim whatsoever - she's a thoroughly awful human being all the way through, and the end is both fitting and horrific. There is the insinuation that most of the surviving characters go on to at least have a chance of living happily ever after, which is a relief. It's very easy to quickly start to care about these characters from the outset, one of the things I think makes a great script.

Day 36: And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie

Over the holiday season, my thus-far traditional Saturdays off are going to be sort of rearranged around family time, and since there were at least 2 days last week without a play it seems entirely fair now that I'm back on track to just keep going.

I've brought along a book of eight of Christie's plays to get me through the majority of the season (though I have A Winter's Tale for Christmas eve) and it seems even more fitting that I should be in Devon while reading them, as it turns out this is where she did the majority of her writing (and indeed, it's where this first one is set). And Then There Were None sets ten people lured to and stranded on Indian Island, each accused of having a hand in someone's death, either directly as murderer or through careless action or inaction. The action played out over the course of several days reminds me very much of the film Clue, with plenty of farce in what would otherwise be a terrifying predicament.

As reading material the style is light and quick - I have seen Mousetrap performed, though quite some time ago now, which is what tempted me to look into Christie's broader repetoire in the first place, and it doesn't disappoint. As a short and comedic murder mystery there's not a lot of take-home moral message but there are certain acting challenges which come to mind. The stage layout is very particularly prescribed and stays largely the same throughout the play - which is something I've complained about in the past but in this case it is necessary and gives a much clearer idea of the grand scale and remote location of the house where the play is set without actually needing to show all of it. Very much looking forward to getting through the rest of these plays over the next couple of weeks!