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Today, once again (and again and again...) marks the anniversary of when Agatha Christie's play The Mousetrap opened on London's West End. That was on November 25, 1952 -- 73 years ago today. It's still running, after reaching 30,000 this year on March 19! Doing the best I can to figure its current status, I believe it's now run for 30,278 performances. By way of comparison, not long ago Phantom of the Opera closed as the longest-ever running production in Broadway history. It ran for 13,981 performances, over the course of 35 years. If it hadn't closed and played for another 35 years…it still would be short of The Mousetrap. And that's only if The Mousetrap closed tomorrow. Even the longest-running show in New York, off-Broadway's musical The Fantasticks, which had a remarkable run of 42 years and 17,162 performances fell far short, just over half as long. And again, The Mousetrap is still running. I have a theory about that. At some point long ago, it stopped by just a long-running play and instead become a tourist attraction, a stop to make when in London. As a kidling, I saw The Mousetrap on a family trip to Europe in 1966, the play's 14th year. A couple years later on another family trip, I picked up a poster which I have up on my walls.  At the time, I was a little sorry that the poster had as many years as "16." Little did I know how paltry that number would be. A couple of fun tidbits about that first production in 1952. One of the actors in the play was Richard Attenborough, who of course went on to great fame as an actor (in such movies as The Great Escape and Jurassic Park), but even greater fame as a director, winning an Oscar for Gandhi. And also, when Agatha Christie signed a contract to give away the movie rights, it was under the condition that no movie of it would be made until after the play closed. That was 73 years ago. So far... (Incidentally, the producer who signed that contract was John Woolf. He went on to have a very successful career, despite this speed bump -- including winning a Best Picture Oscar for the movie musical Oliver!) If you've seen (or plan to) the 2022 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. And the play has still never yet run on Broadway.
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A couple weeks, Ethan Hawke was a guest on Seth Meyers' show. I was going to post this at the time, but other stories got in the way. But finally I can get around to it. After the commercial break during his appearance, he brought up that he was in rehearsals for a new play that would soon be on Broadway, and when... -- Well, I don’t want to say anything else about it. The only thing I'll add is – just watch. It’s wonderful. On the surface, this will seem an uncommon piece to post in the morning, seemingly just about entertainment, the kind of thing I usually post in the late afternoon. And on the surface it is. But that's not why I'm posting it now. In the current Northwestern alumni magazine, they had a story about a recent production there of “Man of La Mancha” -- and included a link to a 15-minute “making of” video about it. The video is extremely well-done, and much of it is very interesting (although it’s something one can jump through parts). However, what’s most interesting -- and the reason I'm posting it in the morning, usually what's been my "political slot" -- is that they re-focused the framing story. Normally, I don’t care much for doing that, but they came up with an extremely interesting concept. There's a reason for telling this, so bear with me. If you haven't seen "Man of La Mancha" (or not seen it in years), the story of Don Quixote is told with a bookending tale around it. The musical actually begins in a Spanish prison in 1597 when Miguel de Cervantes has been arrested an thrown into the infamous Seville prison (loosely inspired by real life, when Cervantes was a tax collector and had put the money he collected into a bank -- which went bankrupt, and the money was lost). The other rough prisoners already in prison when this newcomer arrives charge him with being a fool and a dreamer, and begin to ransack his possessions. And among all that is the manuscript of Don Quixote that Cervantes has been writing. The prisoners go to burn this silly waste of time. But Cervantes begs them not to and instead demands a trial, saying he can't be convicted as a fool without a chance to prove his innocence. And his defense is putting on an amusement, which is the tale of Don Quixote. What Northwestern did is change the setting of this "framing" story. And instead of it taking place in the Seville prison of 1597, it occurs in a modern day ICE detention center on the U.S.-Mexican border, and all those prisoners are immigrants who have been arrested, awaiting deportation to countries unknown. Whether this changed bookending works in full, I don’t know. (It very well may.) But I can tell from the video that it at least does work, and movingly, in part. (I will add as a side note that Trump has frozen $787 million in research funds from Northwestern. And just a couple weeks ago, in order to hopefully take pressure off the university as a target, the school's president resigned. None of that had anything to do with theater department adapting the framing story, that's just coincidence -- work on the show had begun months before any of that happened, and the focus of the changes is, instead, on the ICE arrests and deportations. But it adds perspective to what ended up on stage. Because the funding was frozen on April 8. And the first performance of this production took place just two weeks later, on April 25.) The whole video is interesting on how a college enterprise puts together a musical. And all the more so because the Northwestern theater department is high-end and renowned. It's not unreasonable to skim past some detailed parts, if the minutiae of theater is not your highest interest. But the video is very well-produced. However -- if you don’t want to watch the whole thing or even most of it, at the very least jump to the 13:00 mark for the last three minutes, where they show the final scene. That's the point of this. Trust me. But so that you know what's going in the final scene -- After telling the story of Don Quixote -- where, in the end, this dreamer of a noble world who has chased a fantasy, dies, but not before those who thought him crazy are transformed by his life -- the story returns to the "present day" of the prison. And the inmates (who had played the roles during the story) are themselves profoundly moved by the story about the efforts of one man trying to fight for justice and goodness against all reasonable odds. They return the manuscript to Cervantes, as the prison guards arrive to take him and his manservant with their trunk of possessions to their trial -- and the prisoners serenade him off (with impressively soaring voices here) to his destiny, with a reprise, as you might imagine, of the show's most memorable song. Starting at 13:00, watch the final scene to the very end of the video. This is why I'm posting it here. I hope some other schools and community theaters use this adaptation, at least for the time being. This has gotten a lot of promotion on CNN, but for those who don't often watch the channel or in case it fell through the cracks, I thought it deserved a reminder. But this coming Saturday, June 7 -- also known as "tomorrow" (if you're reading this when posted on Friday -- CNN is broadcasting live the second-to-last performance of the Broadway play, Good Night and Good Luck with George Clooney, based on the film he starred in and co-wrote with Grant Heslov. It airs live at 4 PM in Los Angeles. And 7 PM in the East.
(It's the "second-to-last" performance, rather than the last performance, because that is a matinee on Sunday.) The production was always planned as limited run, so it's not closing early. In fact, it set box-office records during its run. ("Box-office records" have been more common these days, given increased ticket prices...and massively increased ticket prices for celebrity-starring productions. Still, the show has to be good enough to bring in audiences willing to pay those sky-high prices.) CNN will also be having a discussion after the play. I come visit Chicago every year – at times twice a year. And I had plans to come this Spring at some time. But there is a specific reason I came right now – a reason which even the elves back in Los Angeles taking care of the homestead understand. And they always insist that they understand little of what I do… Around 35-40 years, I saw an absolutely wonderful play in Los Angeles, called Translations, by the great Irish playwright Brian Friel. The first play of his that I saw years earlier was Philadelphia, Here I Come – a terrific show with fascinating staging, where the main character is played by two actors on stage at the same time (one his “outer self” who deals with all the people around him, and the other his “inner self,” where we see what he’s really thinking and the exchanges with others he’d like to have). It was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Play. He also wrote the play Dancing at Lunaghsa, which won the Tony Award as Best Play, and was made into a wistful, moody, lovely movie that starred Meryl Streep. So, when I say he’s a great playwright, I’m not kidding around. I’d loved Translations, which was staged in a small, Equity-waiver theater that only seated around 200 people. But as much as I wanted to see it again, in the intervening years hadn’t come across another production of it. In fact, it didn’t finally play on Broadway for another decade after I saw it. But as it happens, the excellent theater company I’ve written about there, the Writers Theatre (that began life literally in the back of a bookstore in Glencoe where I grew up, though now they built a magnificent facility there with two intimate stages – one so small, in fact, that it’s an homage to the original bookstore location) – is putting on Translations!! When I saw their new season announced a year ago, I’ve been anxiously awaiting for tickets to go on sale for this, finally got them, and planned my trip into town around it. (The Writers Theatre has an excellent company, and often uses actors from the Goodman Theater in Chicago. When they put on productions, the main theater critics from the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times drive out to the suburbs to review the plays – and even the critic from the New York Times includes Writers Theatre productions when making his annual “what’s going on with theater in Chicago” trip. The Wall Street Journal has reviewed the company’s productions, as well.) All the more reason why I was glad that it was the Writers Theater putting Translations on. The play is a drama, though often rambunctiously funny, and even has a romance. It has to do with the importance of language and culture, and takes place in 19th century Ireland, when the British occupy Ireland and want to change the national language from Irish to English. The clever thing about the staging is that while all the actors speak to the audience in English, of course, the Irish characters (who only speak Irish) use an Irish accent and the British characters use an English accent – and so, although the two sides within the play can’t understand one another, we in the audience can understand them both. There is a terrific “Romeo and Juliet-like” subplot between an English solider and Irish girl – their sides are natural enemies, but the two are clearly attracted to one another. However, they can’t understand each other, though the audience can. There are times you want to yell out to the stage, “He’s telling you he loves you!!!” Oddly, something weird cropped up related to this. A month ago, I was watching the British talk show The Graham Norton Show on BBC America. One of the guests was one of my favorite actors, Chris O’Dowd (who, not shockingly, is Irish). He was telling a story about having recently appeared in a production of the play…Translations!! But further, as part of the story, he brought up that in the very first production of Translations, about 40 years ago, one of the actors in it was a young actor at the start of his career, Liam Neeson!! Since then, I’ve seen that it was put on by the National Theatre in London, and also the famed Abbey Theatre in Ireland. So, it seems to be done a lot in the U.K. And there even have been productions around this country – I just hadn’t been aware of them, despite keeping my eyes open for it. Obviously, not open wide enough. So, after going around 35-40 years looking for another production of Translations ever since I saw the play, and not coming across even a story about one, I then heard, within a matter of weeks, three different productions brought up! As well as found out about these other major productions, albeit when doing research. But still, something is in the water. But there's even more in the water than just that. Because it only recently struck me how far-more timely the play is today than when it was written. Keeping in mind that the play was scheduled by the Writers Theatre over a year ago -- and noting how in the news right now, the Trump administration not only is blocking the teaching of black history and erasing any DEI references from government documents, but also changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the "Gulf of America" and changing the traditional Alaskan Native name of Mount Denali (the highest peak in the United States), back to "Mount McKinley" -- the reality is that the play of Translations isn't just about soldiers coming to change Gaelic to English, which is close enough to today's headlines...but is about the British government sending in, literally a team of cartographers to change the maps from Irish locations to English names! In fact, how ripped from the headlines is this 40-year old play? Watching a video that the Writers Theatre made with its cast members discussing the meaning of the play, and describing it from the perspective of the ages-old battle between the British and Irish, there is a passage where they say -- verbatim -- that Translations is about "Trying to erase culture and language of that culture, the identity of that culture...Changing the names and places of Ireland to Anglicize them for English purposes." Little could be more current in America. As for the play, it was a joy to see after all this time. It was a great production, as the Writers Theatre's works almost always are. And the acting was impeccable, down to the minor characters. The only "hiccup" is that I could tell that some of the older audience (including those I went with) were having trouble with the thick Irish accents and pronounced British ones. But that's important to the play and the whole point of what it's about. It could be done without accents, I supposed, but it would be a lesser work for it. The play itself is excellent. It's not my favorite of Brian Friel's worth, and there parts that don't work as well for me as others -- the first act is a little slow, but it's absolutely critical for setting up the town, the people in it, the culture there, the relationships and history. Though for my taste, I'd have liked it a touch shorter. But it's so rich in texture, I understand why it's that way. And once the British arrive, the story becomes more involved.  There is a lot left "uncertain" (or unexplained) in the play, but that's part of its point, as well. As Friel writes about the work, language and culture is what's important in the play, not the politics. And lack of clarity and misunderstanding and the criss-crossing of unshared history is at the heart of the play, so not everything is explained neatly. Because language when relying on translating is rarely exactly clear, while trying to be understood is the core of communication. All in all, I was so glad to see the play again after all these years. It's a thoughtful, rich, meandering and substantive work.  Here's a short, 30-second trailer of the play when it was done at the National Theatre in London. It really doesn't to the play justice, or give all that much a sense of the substance, but hey, it's the National Theatre and at least is a start... And as a bonus, this is a short video from one of the actors in the original 1980 production -- Liam Neeson, as he talks about a (then) major revival of the play being done in Ireland two years ago, and then touring, ending at the famed Abbey Theatre. On this week’s ‘Not My Job’ segment of the NPR quiz show Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, the guest contestant is Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Her conversation with host Peter Sagal is a total, enthusiastic and even surprising joy – though they don’t talk about the law (albeit do touch on the Supreme Court), but mostly discuss her great love of theater and her (then) upcoming walk-on appearance in the Broadway musical “& Juliet.” But the highlight may be when she talks about being in a college production at Yale of the musical “Little Shop of Horrors” with panelist Mo Rocca. Followed by a story about doing a scene in acting class there with Matt Damon. It’s all wonderful. This is the full Wait, Wait… broadcast, but you can jump directly to the “Not My Job” segment, it starts around the 18:15 mark. |
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. 
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