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The Mousetrap - Preview

Raleigh Little Theatre will stage another production of The Mousetrap, an edge-of-your-seat thriller by Dame Agatha Christie (1890-1976), Oct. 6-8, 12-15, and 19-22 in its Cantey V. Sutton Theatre. The Mousetrap, which made its London debut on Nov. 25, 1952 at The Ambassadors Theatre and later transferred to the St. Martin’s Theatre, where it is still running today, is the longest-running play on the English stage.

The show’s original producer, Sir Peter Saunders, once wrote that The Mousetrap was originally commissioned to celebrate a royal birthday: “When the late Queen Mary was approaching her 80th birthday, she was asked by the BBC what she would like to celebrate the event—anything from Shakespeare to opera. Queen Mary said she would like ‘an Agatha Christie play’ and Mrs. Christie promptly wrote a 30-minute radio production called ‘Three Blind Mice.’ This was eventually to become The Mousetrap! It was some years later that Agatha Christie asked me to lunch with her. Over the coffee she handed me a brown paper parcel and said: ‘This is a little present for you.’ The present was the script of The Mousetrap and the one person who made no money out of it was the authoress herself. She had left it in trust for her seven-year-old grandson.”

Long-time Raleigh Little Theatre artistic director Haskell Fitz-Simons, who is staging the current production of this celebrated whodunit, says, “Agatha Christie herself controlled the rights to this play. She would not let it be made into a film, because that would broadcast the ending. She’s kept The Mousetrap a play for that reason. I guess we’ve all been exposed to spoilers. No one is surprised by Wait Until Dark anymore, unless they were born this century.”

He adds, “Any of the great surprise endings to plays such as Deathtrap and Wait Until Dark have been spread abroad on film. So, it’s very hard to do those plays on the stage and build any suspense, because everybody knows how they end. We can all thank Miss Christie for [keeping The Mousetrap] a wonderful gripping evening in the theater.”

Before directing The Mousetrap, Fitz-Simons confesses, “I actually have never seen [the play] before. I’ve only read it. It’s always fun to do a play like that, because you have no preconceived notions. We try not to anyway.”

He notes, “The Mousetrap was done at RLT in 1981 or 1982, before I got here; and it was guest-directed by John T. Hall, who is in this cast.”

Fitz-Simons says, “I love directing mysteries, because in some respects, as a director, your mission is so clear: You’ve got to play all the red herrings and all the reversals and orchestrate the suspense until the payoff. In some respects, it’s not brain surgery. Your job is very clear. Miss Christie is, of course, a genius of the murder-mystery genre and particularly the claustrophobic English mystery, where everyone’s trapped in a space that is, more often than not, an English drawing room.

“The Mousetrap has been running in London since 1952,” says Haskell Fitz-Simons. “I was recently in London with folks who went to see it and came back gushing about what a great play it is. I didn’t see it, but they did and they came back saying what a great evening in the theater it is.…

“Frankly,” Haskell Fitz-Simons says, “there just aren’t that many good [mystery-thrillers]; and once you’ve done one, it’s been done. It’s hard to bring them back, because people know the endings.”

He notes, “The Mousetrap starts on a gloomy winter night in moody, ancient Monkswell manor, which young marrieds Mollie and Giles Ralston (Collette Rutherford and Jon Karnofsky) have recently inherited and turned into a guest house. It is opening day, and they’re expecting their first guests. As fate would have it, there’s a blinding snowstorm at the top of the show, which means that the guests may or may not arrive. But they all do, including one extra. In the course of the opening action, we hear on the radio that there is a murderer at large, and last seen in the vicinity. Oh dear, oh dear.”

Fitz-Simons says, “The guests at the house include Jason Justice as the purported architecture student Christopher Wren, Marty Smith as Mrs. Boyle, an abrasive and demanding matron; Phil Lewis as Major Metcalf, a bluff and possibly alcoholic ex-soldier; Anna Nersesian as Miss Casewell, a sort of mysterious traveler from abroad; and John T. Hall as Mr. Paravicini, the unexpected guest. (He gets stranded in the storm and makes his way to the guest house in a rather sinister fashion.) Rounding out the cast is Pepper Jobe as the redoubtable Sergeant Trotter of the local constabulary.

“So, it’s a veritable catalogue of English character types,” Fitz-Simons says, “all trapped together and having wonderful fun.”

In addition to director Haskell Fitz-Simons, the RLT creative team for this show includes assistant to the director Andrew Britt, technical director and scenic designer Roger Bridges, lighting designer Rick Young, costume designer Vicki Olson, properties master Robin Hughes, sound designer Becca Easley, and stage manager G. Paul Slovensky.

Fitz-Simons says, “The Mousetrap is a one-set show, and the set is the great hall at Monkswell Manor, which is sort of a gloomy ancestral manse done up in the Scottish baronial style, with lots of mahogany paneling and gothic arches and woodwork and dusty old drapes and a great big old fireplace.”

He adds, “Lighting is very important in this particular script. We have to walk the minefield of which light is on at which moment, because Miss Christie has been explicit about what the audience is supposed to see and what it is not supposed to see.”

Staging The Mousetrap at RLT presents a number of other creative challenges, says Haskell Fitz-Simons. “Certainly, the snowstorm itself is no mean effort [to duplicate on stage],” he explains, “getting that going and creating the atmosphere of cold and ice and gloom and isolation. [The characters are] trapped, trapped, caught in a trap.… Getting all the exposition out without tipping our hand is also a challenge.”

Fitz-Simons adds, “The Mousetrap is completely and entirely and totally English, so we’ve had to do a lot of dialect work. That’s always a challenge. So is creating costumes from the post World War II period in England. In 1952, the English were still enduring some rationing…. Finding appropriate clothing of the period [is also a challenge].”

Raleigh Little Theatre presents The Mousetrap Friday-Saturday, Oct. 6-7, at 8 p.m.; Sunday, Oct. 8, at 3 p.m., Thursday-Saturday, Oct. 12-14 and 19-21, at 8 p.m.; and Sunday, Oct. 15 and, at 3 p.m. in RLT’s Cantey V. Sutton Theatre, 301 Pogue St., Raleigh, North Carolina. $17 Thursday, Friday, and Sunday ($13 students and seniors 62+) and $21 Saturday, except $10 Oct. 8th. 919/821-3111 or click here. Note 1: All shows are wheelchair accessible, and assistive listening devices are available for all shows. Note 2: The SOLD-OUT Oct. 8th performance will be audio described by Arts Access, Inc. (http://www.artsaccessinc.org/). Raleigh Little Theatre: http://www.raleighlittletheatre.org/performances/mousetrap.html. Agatha Christie: http://uk.agathachristie.com/site/home/ (official web site). The Mousetrap: http://www.vpsmvaudsav.co.uk/ (St. Martin’s Theatre) and http://uk.agathachristie.com/site/about_christie/christie_on_stage/the_mousetrap.php (official Agatha Christie web site).

WHAT: The Triangle Theater Review is a FREE weekly e-mail theatrical newsletter, featuring previews and reviews by Robert W. McDowell and reviews by Alan R. Hall and others. (For brief bios of our contributors, see http://www.cvnc.org/about/critics-bios.html.) Classical Voice of North Carolina, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and this state’s leading performing-arts platform, not only pays our reviewers but also makes continued publication of TTR possible. The online versions of our critics’ theater reviews are now listed in the “Performance Reviews” section of CVNC’s home page: http://www.cvnc.org/. CVNC also publishes a comprehensive list of Triangle “Theatre Openings” (http://www.cvnc.org/calendar/openings.html) and “Theater and Film Links” (http://www.cvnc.org/links/theatre.html).

DONATIONS: If you value the comprehensive, in-depth local theater coverage that the Triangle Theater Review provides, please use your credit card to donate online via PayPal: http://www.cvnc.org/support/index.html; or mail a generous check today to Classical Voice of North Carolina, 3305 Ruffin Street, Raleigh, NC 27607-4025. Because CVNC is a 501(c)(3) organization, all financial contributions are tax-deductible. Be sure to indicate that you want to support continued online publication of the Triangle Theater Review. You may also donate to CVNC through the Triangle Community Foundation, based in Research Triangle Park. You can find current information about CVNC at Philanthropy Central, an online service operated by the Triangle Community Foundation. Click http://www.trianglecf.org/ to make a secure gift to CVNC.

HOW TO SUBSCRIBE: E-mail RobertM748@aol.com and type SUBSCRIBE TTR in the Subject: line. TO UNSUBSCRIBE: E-mail RobertM748@aol.com and type UNSUBSCRIBE TTR in the Subject: line.

QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS? E-mail RobertM748@aol.com.

COPYRIGHT: Editorial content and all formats © 2006 CVNC and the respective authors. Reproduction in any form without authorization of Classical Voice of North Carolina and the respective authors is prohibited. CVNC will maintain an archive of standard previews and reviews from past issues for at least a year, at http://cvnc.org/reviews/archives.html. To request copies of web articles from 2005 and earlier, e-mail cvnc1@earthlink.net.


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The Mousetrap - Preview

Raleigh Little Theatre will stage another production of The Mousetrap, an edge-of-your-seat thriller by Dame Agatha Christie (1890-1976), Oct. 6-8, 12-15, and 19-22 in its Cantey V. Sutton Theatre. The Mousetrap, which made its London debut on Nov. 25, 1952 at The Ambassadors Theatre and later transferred to the St. Martin’s Theatre, where it is still running today, is the longest-running play on the English stage.

The show’s original producer, Sir Peter Saunders, once wrote that The Mousetrap was originally commissioned to celebrate a royal birthday: “When the late Queen Mary was approaching her 80th birthday, she was asked by the BBC what she would like to celebrate the event—anything from Shakespeare to opera. Queen Mary said she would like ‘an Agatha Christie play’ and Mrs. Christie promptly wrote a 30-minute radio production called ‘Three Blind Mice.’ This was eventually to become The Mousetrap! It was some years later that Agatha Christie asked me to lunch with her. Over the coffee she handed me a brown paper parcel and said: ‘This is a little present for you.’ The present was the script of The Mousetrap and the one person who made no money out of it was the authoress herself. She had left it in trust for her seven-year-old grandson.”

Long-time Raleigh Little Theatre artistic director Haskell Fitz-Simons, who is staging the current production of this celebrated whodunit, says, “Agatha Christie herself controlled the rights to this play. She would not let it be made into a film, because that would broadcast the ending. She’s kept The Mousetrap a play for that reason. I guess we’ve all been exposed to spoilers. No one is surprised by Wait Until Dark anymore, unless they were born this century.”

He adds, “Any of the great surprise endings to plays such as Deathtrap and Wait Until Dark have been spread abroad on film. So, it’s very hard to do those plays on the stage and build any suspense, because everybody knows how they end. We can all thank Miss Christie for [keeping The Mousetrap] a wonderful gripping evening in the theater.”

Before directing The Mousetrap, Fitz-Simons confesses, “I actually have never seen [the play] before. I’ve only read it. It’s always fun to do a play like that, because you have no preconceived notions. We try not to anyway.”

He notes, “The Mousetrap was done at RLT in 1981 or 1982, before I got here; and it was guest-directed by John T. Hall, who is in this cast.”

Fitz-Simons says, “I love directing mysteries, because in some respects, as a director, your mission is so clear: You’ve got to play all the red herrings and all the reversals and orchestrate the suspense until the payoff. In some respects, it’s not brain surgery. Your job is very clear. Miss Christie is, of course, a genius of the murder-mystery genre and particularly the claustrophobic English mystery, where everyone’s trapped in a space that is, more often than not, an English drawing room.

“The Mousetrap has been running in London since 1952,” says Haskell Fitz-Simons. “I was recently in London with folks who went to see it and came back gushing about what a great play it is. I didn’t see it, but they did and they came back saying what a great evening in the theater it is.…

“Frankly,” Haskell Fitz-Simons says, “there just aren’t that many good [mystery-thrillers]; and once you’ve done one, it’s been done. It’s hard to bring them back, because people know the endings.”

He notes, “The Mousetrap starts on a gloomy winter night in moody, ancient Monkswell manor, which young marrieds Mollie and Giles Ralston (Collette Rutherford and Jon Karnofsky) have recently inherited and turned into a guest house. It is opening day, and they’re expecting their first guests. As fate would have it, there’s a blinding snowstorm at the top of the show, which means that the guests may or may not arrive. But they all do, including one extra. In the course of the opening action, we hear on the radio that there is a murderer at large, and last seen in the vicinity. Oh dear, oh dear.”

Fitz-Simons says, “The guests at the house include Jason Justice as the purported architecture student Christopher Wren, Marty Smith as Mrs. Boyle, an abrasive and demanding matron; Phil Lewis as Major Metcalf, a bluff and possibly alcoholic ex-soldier; Anna Nersesian as Miss Casewell, a sort of mysterious traveler from abroad; and John T. Hall as Mr. Paravicini, the unexpected guest. (He gets stranded in the storm and makes his way to the guest house in a rather sinister fashion.) Rounding out the cast is Pepper Jobe as the redoubtable Sergeant Trotter of the local constabulary.

“So, it’s a veritable catalogue of English character types,” Fitz-Simons says, “all trapped together and having wonderful fun.”

In addition to director Haskell Fitz-Simons, the RLT creative team for this show includes assistant to the director Andrew Britt, technical director and scenic designer Roger Bridges, lighting designer Rick Young, costume designer Vicki Olson, properties master Robin Hughes, sound designer Becca Easley, and stage manager G. Paul Slovensky.

Fitz-Simons says, “The Mousetrap is a one-set show, and the set is the great hall at Monkswell Manor, which is sort of a gloomy ancestral manse done up in the Scottish baronial style, with lots of mahogany paneling and gothic arches and woodwork and dusty old drapes and a great big old fireplace.”

He adds, “Lighting is very important in this particular script. We have to walk the minefield of which light is on at which moment, because Miss Christie has been explicit about what the audience is supposed to see and what it is not supposed to see.”

Staging The Mousetrap at RLT presents a number of other creative challenges, says Haskell Fitz-Simons. “Certainly, the snowstorm itself is no mean effort [to duplicate on stage],” he explains, “getting that going and creating the atmosphere of cold and ice and gloom and isolation. [The characters are] trapped, trapped, caught in a trap.… Getting all the exposition out without tipping our hand is also a challenge.”

Fitz-Simons adds, “The Mousetrap is completely and entirely and totally English, so we’ve had to do a lot of dialect work. That’s always a challenge. So is creating costumes from the post World War II period in England. In 1952, the English were still enduring some rationing…. Finding appropriate clothing of the period [is also a challenge].”

Raleigh Little Theatre presents The Mousetrap Friday-Saturday, Oct. 6-7, at 8 p.m.; Sunday, Oct. 8, at 3 p.m., Thursday-Saturday, Oct. 12-14 and 19-21, at 8 p.m.; and Sunday, Oct. 15 and, at 3 p.m. in RLT’s Cantey V. Sutton Theatre, 301 Pogue St., Raleigh, North Carolina. $17 Thursday, Friday, and Sunday ($13 students and seniors 62+) and $21 Saturday, except $10 Oct. 8th. 919/821-3111 or click here. Note 1: All shows are wheelchair accessible, and assistive listening devices are available for all shows. Note 2: The SOLD-OUT Oct. 8th performance will be audio described by Arts Access, Inc. (http://www.artsaccessinc.org/). Raleigh Little Theatre: http://www.raleighlittletheatre.org/performances/mousetrap.html. Agatha Christie: http://uk.agathachristie.com/site/home/ (official web site). The Mousetrap: http://www.vpsmvaudsav.co.uk/ (St. Martin’s Theatre) and http://uk.agathachristie.com/site/about_christie/christie_on_stage/the_mousetrap.php (official Agatha Christie web site).

WHAT: The Triangle Theater Review is a FREE weekly e-mail theatrical newsletter, featuring previews and reviews by Robert W. McDowell and reviews by Alan R. Hall and others. (For brief bios of our contributors, see http://www.cvnc.org/about/critics-bios.html.) Classical Voice of North Carolina, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and this state’s leading performing-arts platform, not only pays our reviewers but also makes continued publication of TTR possible. The online versions of our critics’ theater reviews are now listed in the “Performance Reviews” section of CVNC’s home page: http://www.cvnc.org/. CVNC also publishes a comprehensive list of Triangle “Theatre Openings” (http://www.cvnc.org/calendar/openings.html) and “Theater and Film Links” (http://www.cvnc.org/links/theatre.html).

DONATIONS: If you value the comprehensive, in-depth local theater coverage that the Triangle Theater Review provides, please use your credit card to donate online via PayPal: http://www.cvnc.org/support/index.html; or mail a generous check today to Classical Voice of North Carolina, 3305 Ruffin Street, Raleigh, NC 27607-4025. Because CVNC is a 501(c)(3) organization, all financial contributions are tax-deductible. Be sure to indicate that you want to support continued online publication of the Triangle Theater Review. You may also donate to CVNC through the Triangle Community Foundation, based in Research Triangle Park. You can find current information about CVNC at Philanthropy Central, an online service operated by the Triangle Community Foundation. Click http://www.trianglecf.org/ to make a secure gift to CVNC.

HOW TO SUBSCRIBE: E-mail RobertM748@aol.com and type SUBSCRIBE TTR in the Subject: line. TO UNSUBSCRIBE: E-mail RobertM748@aol.com and type UNSUBSCRIBE TTR in the Subject: line.

QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS? E-mail RobertM748@aol.com.

COPYRIGHT: Editorial content and all formats © 2006 CVNC and the respective authors. Reproduction in any form without authorization of Classical Voice of North Carolina and the respective authors is prohibited. CVNC will maintain an archive of standard previews and reviews from past issues for at least a year, at http://cvnc.org/reviews/archives.html. To request copies of web articles from 2005 and earlier, e-mail cvnc1@earthlink.net.

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