Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making: More Stories and Secrets From Her Notebooks by John Curran Page A
Authors: John Curran
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speculative.
Whatever happened during the final preparations, Christie herself was clearly unaware of any problems and was as surprised and as puzzled as anyone at the outcome. The last two references to the play appear in letters written during her journey home, via the Orient Express, in late 1931 from visiting Max in Nineveh. The dating of the letters is tentative, for she was as slipshod about dating letters as she was about dating Notebooks.
[Mid November 1931] I am horribly disappointed. Just seen in the Times that Chimneys begins Dec. 1st so I shall just miss it. Really is disappointing
[Early December 1931] Am now at the Tokatlian [Hotel in Istanbul] and have looked at Times of Dec 7th. And ‘Mary Broome’ is at the Embassy!! So perhaps I shall see Chimneys after all? Or did it go off after a week?
And that was the last that was heard of Chimneys for over 70 years, until a copy of the manuscript appeared, equally mysteriously, on the desk of the Artistic Director of the Vertigo Theatre in Calgary, Canada. So, almost three-quarters of a century after its projected debut, the premiere of Chimneys took place on 11 October 2003. And in June 2006, UK audiences had the opportunity to see this ‘lost’ Agatha Christie play, when it was presented at the Pitlochry Theatre Festival.
It is not known when exactly or, indeed, why Christie decided to adapt this novel for the stage. The use of the word ‘aged’ in the first letter quoted above would seem to indicate that it was undertaken long before interest was shown in staging it. The adaptation was probably done during late 1927/early 1928; a surviving typescript is dated July 1928. This would tally with the notes for the play; they are contained in the Notebook that has very brief, cryptic notes for some of the stories in The Thirteen Problems , the first of which appeared in December 1927. Nor does The Secret of Chimneys lend itself easily, or, it must be said, convincingly, to adaptation. If Christie decided in the late 1920s to dramatise one of her titles, one possible reason for choosing The Secret of Chimneys may have been her reluctance to put Poirot on the stage . She dropped him from four adaptations in later years – Murder on the Nile , Appointment with Death , The Hollow and Go Back for Murder ( Five Little Pigs ). The only play thus far to feature him was the original script, Black Coffee , staged the year before the proposed presentation of Chimneys .Yet, if she had wanted to adapt an earlier title, surely The Mysterious Affair at Styles or even The Murder on the Links would have been easier, set as they are largely in a single location and therefore requiring only one stage setting?
Perhaps with this in mind, the adaptation of The Secret of Chimneys is set entirely in Chimneys. This necessitated dropping large swathes of the novel (including the early scenes in Africa and the disposal, by Anthony, of Virginia’s blackmailer) or redrafting these scenes for delivery as speeches by various characters. This tends to make for a clumsy Act I, demanding much concentration from the audience as they are made aware of the back-story; but it is necessary in order to retain the plot. The second and third Acts are more smooth-running and, at times, quite sinister, with the stage in darkness and a figure with a torch making his way quietly across the set. There are also sly references, to be picked up by alert Christie aficionados, to ‘retiring and growing vegetable marrows’ and to the local town of Market Basing, a recurrent Christie location.
The solution propounded in the stage version is the earliest example of Christie altering her own earlier explanation. She was to do this throughout her career. On the stage she gave extra twists to And Then There Were None , Appointment with Death and Witness for the Prosecution ; on the page, to ‘The Incident of the Dog’s Ball’/ Dumb Witness , ‘Yellow Iris’/ Sparkling Cyanide and ‘The Second
Whatever happened during the final preparations, Christie herself was clearly unaware of any problems and was as surprised and as puzzled as anyone at the outcome. The last two references to the play appear in letters written during her journey home, via the Orient Express, in late 1931 from visiting Max in Nineveh. The dating of the letters is tentative, for she was as slipshod about dating letters as she was about dating Notebooks.
[Mid November 1931] I am horribly disappointed. Just seen in the Times that Chimneys begins Dec. 1st so I shall just miss it. Really is disappointing
[Early December 1931] Am now at the Tokatlian [Hotel in Istanbul] and have looked at Times of Dec 7th. And ‘Mary Broome’ is at the Embassy!! So perhaps I shall see Chimneys after all? Or did it go off after a week?
And that was the last that was heard of Chimneys for over 70 years, until a copy of the manuscript appeared, equally mysteriously, on the desk of the Artistic Director of the Vertigo Theatre in Calgary, Canada. So, almost three-quarters of a century after its projected debut, the premiere of Chimneys took place on 11 October 2003. And in June 2006, UK audiences had the opportunity to see this ‘lost’ Agatha Christie play, when it was presented at the Pitlochry Theatre Festival.
It is not known when exactly or, indeed, why Christie decided to adapt this novel for the stage. The use of the word ‘aged’ in the first letter quoted above would seem to indicate that it was undertaken long before interest was shown in staging it. The adaptation was probably done during late 1927/early 1928; a surviving typescript is dated July 1928. This would tally with the notes for the play; they are contained in the Notebook that has very brief, cryptic notes for some of the stories in The Thirteen Problems , the first of which appeared in December 1927. Nor does The Secret of Chimneys lend itself easily, or, it must be said, convincingly, to adaptation. If Christie decided in the late 1920s to dramatise one of her titles, one possible reason for choosing The Secret of Chimneys may have been her reluctance to put Poirot on the stage . She dropped him from four adaptations in later years – Murder on the Nile , Appointment with Death , The Hollow and Go Back for Murder ( Five Little Pigs ). The only play thus far to feature him was the original script, Black Coffee , staged the year before the proposed presentation of Chimneys .Yet, if she had wanted to adapt an earlier title, surely The Mysterious Affair at Styles or even The Murder on the Links would have been easier, set as they are largely in a single location and therefore requiring only one stage setting?
Perhaps with this in mind, the adaptation of The Secret of Chimneys is set entirely in Chimneys. This necessitated dropping large swathes of the novel (including the early scenes in Africa and the disposal, by Anthony, of Virginia’s blackmailer) or redrafting these scenes for delivery as speeches by various characters. This tends to make for a clumsy Act I, demanding much concentration from the audience as they are made aware of the back-story; but it is necessary in order to retain the plot. The second and third Acts are more smooth-running and, at times, quite sinister, with the stage in darkness and a figure with a torch making his way quietly across the set. There are also sly references, to be picked up by alert Christie aficionados, to ‘retiring and growing vegetable marrows’ and to the local town of Market Basing, a recurrent Christie location.
The solution propounded in the stage version is the earliest example of Christie altering her own earlier explanation. She was to do this throughout her career. On the stage she gave extra twists to And Then There Were None , Appointment with Death and Witness for the Prosecution ; on the page, to ‘The Incident of the Dog’s Ball’/ Dumb Witness , ‘Yellow Iris’/ Sparkling Cyanide and ‘The Second
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