14 - 20 December 2000
Issue No.512
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 14 - 20 December 2000 Issue No.512 |
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Plain Talk
During my 12-year stay in London I was fortunate enough to see the likes of Ralph Richardson, Lawrence Olivier, Robert Morley, Edith Evans and Cybil Thorndike on stage. I saw Shakespeare, I saw Gilbert and Sullivan and, in between, a great number of classic and modern plays: Christopher Fry's The Lady is not for Burning, Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral and Family Reunion, Osborne's Look Back in Anger, Wilde's The Importance of Being Ernest. In addition, I saw Vivien Leigh in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Katherine Hepburn in Annie Get Your Gun, among others. And this experience of the English stage has proved an abiding inspiration.
I could go on listing dozens, if not hundreds, of plays that gave me pleasure. And in addition to pleasure, many made a deep impression on my mind. One such play, Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, came to my attention when I read about a celebration at the Savoy Hotel, London, to mark its 20,000th West End performance. The premiere, which I was lucky enough to attend, was in November 1952. Among the cast on that opening night was Richard (now Lord) Attenborough, acting alongside his wife Sheila Sim. The original cast also included Jessica Spencer, though she left the play in the mid-1950s.
The Mousetrap has established itself, simply by virtue of longevity, as a landmark in Britain's theatrical life. It was no wonder, then, that Chris Smith, the secretary of state for culture, media and sport, should have attended the Savoy Hotel celebration.
The Mousetrap is not acknowledged as one of Christie's masterpieces. But its 48-year run has served to turn it into a phenomenon of sorts, and its popularity shows no sign of diminishing. Age, in this particular case, is unlikely to wither The Mousetrap.
Many people have seen it more than once, yet knowing the solution to the mystery does not seem to spoil their enjoyment of the action. There is no doubting the sheer theatrical clout that has made of the play such an extraordinary West End performance. It is a detective story capable of transcending its genre.
In an atmosphere of nostalgia, the Savoy celebration featured the play's original cast, headed by Lord Attenborough, who reminisced about declining the producer's offer to put money into the production. He also confessed to leading the delegation of actors to Christie to demand that the second act be rewritten. Jessica Spencer admitted her surprise that the show should have lasted so long, and Christie's grandson, who was given the play's copyright for his ninth birthday, said that Christie had been amazed initially at the play's success, an amazement that only really wore off after 15 years.
According to David Lister in The Independent of 8 December, the statistics surrounding The Mousetrap are mind-blowing. Staged in 44 countries and translated into 24 languages, the play created a force field of interest that straddled not only social and cultural categories but national and international borders. Lord Attenborough, who is the play's fierce defendant, is quoted: "A myth has grown up that it got bad reviews. But it got good reviews. The Sunday Times called it a classic thriller and The Observer called it a classic among murder thrillers. There was never a single empty seat in the two years that I was in it."
While some recent plays have managed considerable longevity on the English stage -- Cats, Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical of Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, has lasted 18 years and The Woman in Black has been playing for 11 -- I doubt if any will even approach the success achieved by The Mousetrap, which has remained a touchstone for almost half century, surviving the dramatic social upheavals and changes of a generation and more.
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