A Murder is Announced. Good entertainment based on a mediocre script!

Photo Maria Vartanova

Agatha  Christie is a master of murder mystery. Her works include complicated plots, a number of suspects – each one with a well kept secret – and Miss Marple, an amateur sleuth with unparalleled wit. What makes her books so widely loved is that, although events revolve around a murder, the story is rarely about the crime. Leslie Darbon’s stage adaptation of Christie’s novel “A Murder is Announced” is an attempt to reconcile the thrill of a “whodunnit” with the cozy, small-town atmosphere Agatha Christie de-scribes in her novels. While it works well in the first act, the second comes off as rushed and chopped. Still, congratulations are in order to Ottawa Little Theatre for managing to produce an entertaining production out of a somewhat mediocre script.

“A Murder is Announced” starts on a Friday morning with the inhabitants of Little Pad-docks in the small English village of Chipping Cleghorn reading their beloved “Gazette,” a newspaper that mostly deals with village inhabitants’ celebrations, sorrows and needs. That very morning, to their utmost surprise, they read the following advertisement:

“A murder is announced and will take place on Friday, October 29th, at Little Paddocks, at 6:30 p.m. Friends accept this, the only intimation.”

Letitia Blacklock, the owner of the house, believes that the announcement is a prank by her nephew Patrick or niece Julia, who are currently staying with her. She knows that the advertisement will probe too much for her neighbors’ curiosity, so she prepares some refreshments for the evening (just in case). As predicted, the neighbors show up just in time, and exactly as advertised, the lights go out at 6:30 p.m. What follows is a shock to everybody: a young man, seemingly a stranger, is shot in Letitia Blacklock’s living room.

Trying to put together a stage production from a book is tricky business. As every page cannot make it to the stage, the dramaturg must decide what to omit without interrupting the natural flow of the narrative. Agatha Christie is intrigued by human nature. She writes about people in a certain milieu and uses crime as an excuse to explore their behavior and what drives them. This makes her a master of characters even more so than a master of crime. This is exactly why it is extremely difficult to stage her novels – if you miss the atmosphere and, especially, characters, you do not have an Agatha Chris-tie mystery at all.

Darbon’s choices in the second act change the very nature of Agatha Christie’s mys-tery. In order to bring the mystery to a close (and discover the murderer), Darbon bor-rows solutions from some other Christie books. The idea of blackmail comes from “The

Moving Finger” and the process of apprehending the murderer at the very end is taken from “Nemesis.” While these elements work in their respective novels because they fol-low the natural flow of the narrative, cutting inserting them into “A Murder is Announced” results in an unclear, jumbled storyline.

Christie’s novels are full of colourful characters, each hiding a secret or two, making them all potential suspects in the mystery. In this version, many of the original ‘cast’ from the book are excised, which results in gaps in characters’ relationships and motiva-tions. For instance, it becomes clear that Phillipa, a young war widow who lives in Miss Blacklock’s house, is romantically involved with the young writer Edward, one of Miss Blacklock’s neighbors. In the course of the investigation, the inspector finds out that Phillipa’s first husband was not killed in the war as originally thought. As the investigator never says what has happened to the husband, it is unclear whether Phillipa and Ed-ward are in an illicit relationship, or whether this is important to the story line. That is only one example of the confusion the shorter story brings.

Plus, in an effort to be authentic, the actors affect English accents, with very mixed re-sults. As seen time and again, the actors spend so much energy trying to keep up their accents that not much is left over for building their characters. This in turn takes away from the play’s atmosphere, which makes the whole thing ultimately lose its Agatha Christie flavor.

Still, the first act makes the play worth a theatre lover’s time. It is playful, full of humour, and well acted and directed. David Magladry’s set design is authentic and the music is incorporated excellently – it adds to the humor and underlines the characters (especially that of Mitzi). Janet Uren (Dora Bunner) and Sarah Hearn (Mitzi) are a delight and a pleasure to watch.

Written by Agatha Christie Adaptation: Leslie Darbon Directed by: Venetia Lawless and Nicole Milne

“A Murder is Announced” plays in Ottawa Little Theater until May 11.

Written by Agatha Christie

Adaptation: Leslie Darbon

Directed by: Venetia Lawless and Nicole Milne

 

Cast:

Letitia Blacklock Linda Webster

Julia Simmons Lindsay Laviolette

Dora Bunner (Bunny) Janet Uren

Patrick Simmons Ian Gillies

Mitzi Michelle Paré

Miss Marple Sarah Hearn

Phillipa Haymes Rachel Stanley

Clara Swettenham Pam Harle

Edmund Swettenham Riley Stewart

Rudi Scherz Edgar Wakefield

Inspector Craddock Michael Clarke

Sergeant Mellors Chris Bowler