Back in 1966, when I was but a kidling, I went on a family trip to Europe, and when we were in London, I went with my older brother to see Agatha Christie's play The Mousetrap. (Our folks went to a different play.) I was very excited about going, since I liked Agatha Christie mysteries and had heard so much about this monumentally long-running play. So long-running that it was a phenomenon. I'd read the short story (though a long one, almost a novella) beforehand, so I knew whodunnit -- but at intermission I asked my brother who he thought the killer was. (Don't worry, I won't give it away.) He kept changing his guess -- "no, wait, I think it's..." -- and I just politely sat there smiling at him. (Fun fact: He didn't guess it.) Two years later, on another family trip, I got a poster for the show. I later had it framed, and it sits on my wall -- For the record, I saw the play in its 14th year. What I love about the poster is how it trumpets, "THE LONGEST RUNNING PLAY OF ANY KIND IN THE HISTORY OF THE BRITISH THEATRE." That was in 1968. Its 16th year. Today, the production celebrates its 70th! The play opened on November 25, 1952. And yes, it's still running. After 21 years, it moved next door to the St. Martin's Theatre, and it's changed casts (often) -- over 400 actors and actresses have performed in it -- but those are pretty much the only differences. (Though it's changed casts often -- in fact, now, they change casts every year, generally in November -- some actors stuck with the show for a long time. In the poster above, you'll notice at the bottom of the cast list one of the actors I saw, David Raven. He stayed in the show for 11 years! Not a bad daily job for a stage actor...) The show has currently run for over 28,000 performances over those 70 years. To put this in perspective, the longest running show in the of history New York theater is the off-Broadway musical The Fantasticks, which ran for 42 years and 17,162 performances. And eventually closed. (On Broadway, The Phantom of the Opera is still going with a remarkably long-running 34-year production, however its producers recently announced that they would be closing the show in five months, in April.) Meanwhile, Ol' Man Mousetrap, it just keeps rolling along. Agatha Christie wrote in her autobiography that her agent thought the play would run for an impressive 14 months, but she totally disagreed. "It won't run that long," she said. "Eight months perhaps. Yes, I think eight months." Even that would have been a great run for a play. Today, it's a joke. My favorite story about The Mousetrap is that before it opened, Agatha Christie signed a movie contract, though with one proviso: no movie could be made until the play finally closed for six months. And that was 70 years ago, with no closing notice in sight. (The show's website says that it is taking ticket orders through November, 2023 -- a year from now.) That's why you haven't seen a movie of The Mousetrap. (By the way, the movie producer in question was John Woolf, who happily went on the have an notable career despite this, most memorably winning an Oscar for Best Picture with Oliver! His other movies included Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File and Room at the Top, among many others.) Also fun is that when the play opened, Agatha Christie gave the rights to the play to her grandson Mathew Pritchard as a gift for his ninth birthday. (This article here is an interview with him about the birthday gift.) With the returns, he later set up the Colwinston Trust, which among its many donations to the arts has supported some of the most famous venues in Wales, including the Wales Millennium Centre, The Welsh National Opera, and Cardiff's Chapter Arts Centre. Noteworthy, too, is that in the opening night cast, a young actor Richard Attenborough played the investigator, 'Detective Sergeant Trotter'. His wife Sheila Sim was also in the cast as 'Mollie Ralston,' one of the owners of the snowbound Monkswell Manor where the play takes place. They each received a 10% profit-participation in the show, which was deducted from their combined weekly salaries. ("It proved to be the wisest business decision I've ever made," Attenborough later said, not shockingly, though added, "but foolishly I sold some of my share to open a short-lived Mayfair restaurant called 'The Little Elephant' and later still, disposed of the remainder in order to keep Gandhi afloat." However, considering that Gandhi won the Oscar for Best Picture, and Attenborough won for Best Director, it does seem like money very well-spent, and got its own financial -- and professional -- return.) There are a few things I didn't know about The Mousetrap until very recently. Starting with that it did not begin life as a short story. Rather it was originally written as a 1945 radio play for the BBC, in honor of the birthday of Queen Mary. (It was presented under the name Three Blind Mice.) Agatha Christie adapted the radio play as a short story, which she then adapted for the stage. The title had to be changed, though, because there had been another play with the same name, done before World War II. (The new title was suggested by Christie's son-in-law Anthony Hicks. Of all things, it comes from Hamlet. And in a nice bit of appropriate whimsy, from the famous "The play's the thing" scene when he is giving advice to the actors. Asked the name of the play, he jokingly refers to it as "The Mousetrap.") What I also didn't know about The Mousetrap until just a few weeks ago is that the background for the reason of the murder was loosely inspired by a true life story. In another odd twist, somewhat similar to that of the movie rights, Christie requested that the short story not be published in the United Kingdom as long as the play was running in London's West End. When I read about that, I couldn't figure out how I was able to have read it. But it turns out that the story was allowed to be published in the United States and appeared in the collection Three Blind Mice and Other Stories. I've still kept my copy all these years. A whopping 45-cents. And the original title is duly noted on the cover. By the way, if you haven't seen last year's movie See How They Run with Sam Rockwell, Saoirse Ronan and Adrien Brody, it's a fun, comic-murder mystery that's centered around a murder that occurs backstage during the early days of The Mousetrap. The story is totally fictional, but real details are mixed in -- including Richard Attenborough being a character, as is John Woolf, it taking place at the Ambassador Theatre and a few other matters, as well as Agatha Christie taking part, as well. Also, on more of a personal note, when I returned to London in that aforementioned 1968 family trip, I went to see a wonderful one-act play by Tom Stoppard called The Real Inspector Hound. It was a deeply-clever satire of theater, critics, drawing-room murder mysteries and, in particular, The Mousetrap. And such a total joy that even as a kid I could appreciate it (especially having seen The Mousetrap two years earlier). My poster of it sits on the wall next to the one of The Mousetrap. And let's just add another twist to the story. Because this is Agatha Christie and The Mousetrap, after all -- Though The Mousetrap has been running for 70 years in London's West End, it has oddly never played on Broadway. Until...now! Producers in London and New York just announced today that The Mousetrap will finally play on Broadway some time in 2023. That’s a pretty good, pre-Broadway tryout. (I still don’t know why it took this long. Nor do articles I've read about this Broadway opening. Though a large Broadway house might not be the best idea for this intimate show, at the moment its schedule for a limited engagement, so it seems like that could be the right choice. Of course, there's always the possibility of it being extended -- although for 70 years might be a bit of a stretch...) Producers say that the Broadway run's set design will include an authentic touch -- the only piece of the original set that still survives— the mantelpiece clock — will be loaned from the London production. Also, the backstage wind machine (which was described as "unique") that has the original producer’s name imprinted on it and still used today, will also be loaned. Anyway, to find out more about the original London production, you can check out the official website for The Mousetrap here. And here's their current trailer.
4 Comments
I just read in Forbes of a poll in Georgia as of two weeks ago. It's the most recent that I could find. The poll said --
“Warnock leads Walker 51% to 47%, results that are within the poll’s 4.4 point margin of error but slightly more favorable toward Warnock compared to the midterm election results, when Warnock netted 49.4% of votes compared to Walker’s 48.5%.” A few things: While I’m slightly surprised it’s this close, I don’t think it’s as close as it appears, and what Forbes writes is a very generous interpretation of the poll. Yes, four points is within the 4.4 margin of error. But only by the edges of one’s fingertips. Also, the margin is four times as big as the actual election night margin (not “slightly more favorable”) – an election that Warnock beat Walker by 36,000. Warnock’s poll numbers are increasing. Not the direction a candidate wants who is starting out behind by 36,000 votes. Walker is starting from the perspective of 36,000 votes behind. He can’t afford to be one percent behind in polls, let alone four percent behind. He has to pick up votes, and a lot of them. This poll is just asking who you prefer, not who you will go out to vote for. I am sure a lot of Republicans held their nose voting for Walker because it meant taking over the Senate. Without that being on the table anymore, it seems likely many of those GOP voters won’t hold their noses again and go out to vote again, so Walker has to pick up more voters and not be four points behind. Warnock won 49.4% in the election. So, he only has to pick up .6% to win. Being up in the polls by four percent is much better than “slightly more favorable.” The one thing that Walker has to hope for is that almost all the 2.1% of voters who voted for Libertarian Chase Oliver will vote for him. But what seems more likely is that they won’t vote. And again, the poll has Warnock ahead by four points. And that suggests many of those Libertarian votes went to Warnock. Being up by four points and within a hair’s breath of the 4.4% margin of error means that if Warnock only picks up .5%, he will be ahead by 4.5% and outside the margin of error by THAT MUCH – by contrast, for Walker to be ahead by the same amount as Warnock is now, the numbers would have to flip by eight points! (Well outside the margin of error.) And this poll is from two weeks ago, before the follow-up story of the second woman speaking out publicly about Walker paying for her abortion and before the story that Walker is getting a tax break for having his primary residence in Texas. (By the way, left out of most stories is that the Texas law Walker is getting is tax break under says that he must return to Texas within two years – quite a conundrum for someone asking Georgia to make him their senator for six years…) Yes, this is just one poll. And I don’t know who did it and how accurate they are. But it’s all we have to go on. Today, we'll have a festival of sorts of Thanksgiving related pieces -- from songs to videos to old radio shows. And this is a good place to start. I'm a big fan of Jack Benny, and have been since a kid. Perhaps I got it from my Grandma Rose who loved Benny, and I remember watching his TV show with her when little. Later, when I was at a senior at Northwestern I finally had built up enough contacts to figure out how to get access to their great radio archive -- it was like entering a wonderful, wall-to-wall recordings of old radio programs, and I was able to tape record a bunch of old Benny shows for my collection, which I still have. They're gems. It turns out that my friend and reader of these pages, Eric Boardman -- an all-around talented fellow and Second City alum -- is quite the fan, as well. He sent me the following several months back, about the Jack Benny Show's Thanksgiving special on November 30, 1952 -- "It's no secret, I am obsessed with the Jack Benny radio show. Each night I listen to an episode on my phone as I fall asleep. (Do you conk out with a smile on your kisser?) "Yes, I know Thanksgiving is long over, but this particular program will bring joy to any season. Today's sitcom staffers should study the construction. And everybody else should howl with laughter---and marvel at the gags radio encourages. Benny's writers are constantly surprising us with 'visual" images' And Mr. Benny generously shares the jokes with his crackerjack cast. (Thanks always to the Sportsman Quartet for making cigarette commercials satisfying.) 'The Lucky Strike Program with Jack Benny' is high art, maybe the highest of the genre. "Happy listening!" Heading back to The West Wing, this is a wonderful scene about CJ having to convince President Bartlet to pardon another turkey, after having done it already with another one. And this is an absolutely lovely scene about immigrants on Thanksgiving Day that culminates in a beautiful rendition of the song, "We Gather Together." The video is very fuzzy at the opening, but it clears up. The West Wing always had very good and often fun Thanksgiving episodes, so I thought I'd post several snippets. We'll start with maybe my favorite of them -- President Bartlet and the Butterball Hot Line. And here's another good clip from The West Wing. It's when a couple of turkeys are dropped off at the White House to be pardoned. It's that time o' year, and I think it's near-impossible on Thanksgiving to not celebrate with this classic by Stan Freberg, from his great Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America. And so let's start the day off with his version of how Thanksgiving actually came about. It begins with the local mayor decided a bit of self-promotion would help him if he threw a big gala and invited some Indians to show what a great guy he was. Which leads to a Freberg gem, "Take an Indian to Lunch." And once the holiday event was decided upon, things didn't go as smoothly as plans would hope.
|
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
Categories
All
|
© Copyright Robert J. Elisberg 2024
|