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ASF Study Materials for

The Mousetrap

by

Director James Bowen Study materials written by Set Design Peter Hicks Susan Willis, ASF Dramaturg Costume Design Jeffrey Todhunter [email protected] Lighting Design Travis MaCale Contact ASF at: www.asf.net Sound Design Will Burns 1.800.841-4273 1

by Agatha Christie Welcome to The Mousetrap—Theatre's Premier Mystery

An English country house. Isolated in a snow storm. Roads impassable. Phone wires cut. And a murderer on the premises.

The Mousetrap is not just a hit in Characters Mollie Ralston, co-owner of ; it is a tradition. It has been running Monkswell Manor Guest on the West End (London's "Broadway") House, early 20s continuously since its premiere in 1952. Giles Ralston, her husband and When it opened, Agatha Christie co-owner, also in his 20s thought it might run a few months, but Christopher Wren, a guest, since she is world-famous for her murder young and neurotic mysteries, this one has proven compelling to Mrs. Boyle, a guest, middle-aged and imposing generations of theatregoers. So compelling, Major Metcalf, a guest, in fact, that the last word spoken from the middle-aged retired Army stage is a request that the not officer "" so others can enjoy the Miss Casewell, a guest, young thrill of discovery, too. So you are now and forthright enjoined to keep the secret—once you know Mr. Paravicini, an unexpected it. And following that injunction made by arrival, appears foreign and Christie herself, we won't divulge the guilty elderly party in these study materials (in over 60 The Mousetrap­— Sergeant Trotter, a young • is the world's longest running initial Berkshire Police detective years only Wikipedia is a snitch)! It was a contemporary mystery when production of a . By its 60th it opened, set in the early 1950s. Theatres anniversary in 2012 it had passed Place: in Berkshire, England still set it in the early 1950s, though now 25,000 performances. Time: the early 1950s that makes it a period piece, part of the • became the longest running British post-World War II scene of battered but play in 1958, surpassing Noel brave Britain. We should remember these Coward's . people have come through the war and are • now hires a new cast every year for now facing a difficult future; we should also a 47-week contract. Over 400 actors recall that war is not the only experience have performed in The Mousetrap that can scar individuals. The past is such since 1952. a rich cave in which to hunt for motives, • still uses the voice of the radio and Christie links the murders at Monkswell announcer from the 1952 production, Manor to an earlier crime during wartime. so one member of the original cast still Scars linger, and now those responsible performs, and one prop, the clock on are being killed. the mantelpiece, was also there on opening night. Who is the murderer?

"They're all interesting, because you never really know what anyone is like—or what they are really thinking."

"EVERYONE IS UNDER SUSPICION." 2 The Mousetrap

by Agatha Christie About the Author: Agatha Christie

"The Queen of Crime" Her Work • The Agatha Christie website states • Christie's first attempts featured (or boasts) that only the Bible and her interests in madness and the Shakespeare have out-published paranormal (she and her siblings Christie's works, currently some 2 thought their mother had second billion copies. sight), but none was published. • She is also regarded as the • She also enjoyed , most translated author, her especially Wilkie Collins and Sir Arthur work appearing in over 103 Conan Doyle, and her first , The languages. Mysterious Affair at Styles, written in • She began writing crime 1916 on a dare from her sister, was during published in 1920, the first of her 66 and continued until near her detective novels. death in 1976. • Her most famous works include And • Many masters of the Then There Were None (1939), genre consider Christie The Murder of Roger Ackroyd the originator of many (1926), and Murder on the Orient fundamental motifs of mystery writing. Express (1934). She also wrote 14 Her Life collections as well as 6 • Christie was born Agatha Miller in romance novels under a pseudonym 1890 in Torquay, England, the child in addition to 16 plays (among them of an English mother and a wealthy The Mousetrap and Witness for the "Evil is not something American father who had been Prosecution) and poems. superhuman. It is educated in Europe. • Her World War I work as a something less than • Home-schooled at first, she was an avid pharmacological dispenser gave her human." reader of classic English children's a useful knowledge of poisons, and —Agatha Christie books by Mrs. Molesworth and Enid she used her archaeological travels Nesbit and the of Edward Lear in the Middle East with her second and Lewis Carroll. A skilled pianist, her husband as for a number of shyness kept her from pursuing that her mysteries. career. • She is seen as the foremost writer in • Her father died when she was eleven, the Golden Age of Crime Writing, the thus ending what she called her 1920s and '30s. happy childhood. She went to finishing schools in and then with her ailing mother to the warmth of Egypt. "The impossible could not • Married and divorced from her first have happened, therefore husband, , by 1928, in the impossible must be possible 1930 she married archaeologist Max in spite of appearances." Mallowan. They each earned an OBE award for their professional work. —Agatha Christie

"Yes—the unexpected guest.… from nowhere—out of the storm.… It sounds quite dramatic. I am the man of mystery."

"EVERYONE IS UNDER SUSPICION." 3 The Mousetrap

by Agatha Christie Christie's Most Famous Detectives—Poirot and Marple

Every great mystery writer creates a great detective. After all, setting up a • Jane Marple is Poirot's inverse, spine-tingling set of crimes does us no instinctual where he is heady. She is good unless someone can solve the case. a white-haired spinster, an amateur Christie created a some great case solvers, sleuth, not a professional, but she both professional and amateur, but two have is uncannily successful amidst her gone down in the annals of — knitting and gardening: "she has had and Miss Jane Marple. every opportunity to observe human Not surprisingly, perhaps, they are nature," and "there is a great deal of opposites—not simply different genders, wickedness in village life." but with different styles of observation, • the appears in 12 Christie Performing Poirot "sleuthing," and murder solving. The novels and 20 stories, very few prior • the first was Charles contrast was salutary for the author and to the 1940s, whereas Poirot figured Laughton on stage in 1928 stimulating for her readers. in many of Christie's early novels. • then Austin Trevor, followed Hercule Poirot • Marple's character was influenced by Tony Randall, Albert by Christie's experience with her Finney (who got an Oscar • the detective who solves Agatha nomination for his Poirot in Christie's first published mystery,The grandmother and her "cronies." the 1974 film Murder on the Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), Christie observed that both Jane Orient Express), and Peter known for his waxed moustache, Marple and her Gran "always Ustimov perfectionism, egotism, and fine mind. expected the worst of everyone and • for 25 years, English actor • In her Autobiography, Christie said, everything, and were, with almost David Suchet (above) "Why not make my detective a frightening accuracy, usually proved played the Belgian, taping right." every Poirot story for tv Belgian?… I could see him as a tidy little man, always arranging things, • Her grandson says Christie as an liking things in pairs, liking things author used many of Marple's Performing square instead of round. And he techniques; she "listened more than Miss Marple should be brainy—he should have she talked, … saw more than she • was seen." Story ideas, like clues, are was followed little grey cells of the mind." everywhere, even sitting at the next by Margaret • during her career he appeared in Rutherford, 33 novels and 54 short stories—and table in the cafe. a comic considering that he was already a Marple; "former shining light of the Belgian Analyzing Investigation in The Mousetrap Angela police force" before the war (World • Consider the presence of the Lansbury War I, in his case) forced him to professional view vs. the amateur was more England, he had a long run. As view in the play. Sgt. Trotter, as the "austere," and , policeman, the professional, organizes then for the Christie observed late in her life, she started him off too old, for he must be the inquiry and seeks information BBC (above, Christie's and clues. Mollie, like Miss Marple, favorite), and Geraldine well over 100 by the later novels—but begins to ask questions, to widen the McEwan and Julia in fiction he seemed ageless. McKenzie, also in television • Poirot's character was inspired by consideration of suspects, to see the series the Belgian Christie saw in situation from different angles. How do Torquay while she worked in a hospital these two methods work in the play? during World War I.

"One of you is in danger, deadly danger."

"EVERYONE IS UNDER SUSPICION." 4 The Mousetrap

by Agatha Christie Mousetrap Lore

The Story • Christie then revised the story when • The play originated as a BBC radio adapting it for the stage, adding a play commissioned in 1946 in honor character, changing a name, and of Queen Mary's 80th birthday. When altering a few details, though not the offered a special broadcast of her general arc of the tale nor the identity choice, she chose a new play by of the murderer. The play could not "Three Blind Mice" Agatha Christie so the entire nation be called Three Blind Mice, however, could enjoy the broadcast. Christie because another playwright had Three blind mice, three blind wrote a 30-minute radio drama called recently used that title for a play. mice, "Three Blind Mice." See how they run, see how • The new title for the play was they run. • Christie subsequently turned the radio suggested by Christie's son-in-law, They all ran after the farmer's wife, play into a short story, "Three Blind Anthony Hicks. It is an allusion to She cut off their tails with a Mice," which to this day cannot be Hamlet, in which "The Mousetrap" is carving knife, published in Britain. In America, it the title Hamlet gives to The Murder Did you ever see such a sight appears in a short story collection of Gonzago, which replicates his in your life, called Three Blind Mice and Other father's secret murder and which he As three blind mice? Stories (1950). has performed before the murderer, In the story we move with the his uncle, King Claudius, to confirm • The jingle first became a characters through the house, and a his guilt. children's nursery rhyme in number of key conversations occur in 1842 when it was published in a collection. the kitchen. We also get the more of • Christie gave the rights to the play the characters' thoughts than in the to her grandson Mathew for his 9th • The rhyme and tune itself are play. birthday; he was hoping for a bicycle. older, however, published in As he later realized, he lucked out. 1609. Some think the then- teenaged editor, Thomas Ravenscroft, was its author. The tune "Three Blind • Without substantial proof, Mice" starts with a third some historians think this descending. Other famous early rhyme may refer to allusions to the tune occur in Queen Mary I of England music by Robert Schumann, and her execution of three Joseph Holbrooke, Joseph Protestant bishops. Haydn, and Eric Coates. It was also later used as the • Why might Christie have song for the Three chosen this rhyme as the Stooges, and a calypso original title of the story? version was part of the Three? Blind? Mice? soundtrack of the James Bond film Dr. No (which has • If the logo uses a mousetrap, 3 villains). as here, should it be empty or have a mouse in it? Why?

"So we're quite cut off now. Quite cut off. That's funny, isn't it?"

"EVERYONE IS UNDER SUSPICION." 5 The Mousetrap

by Agatha Christie Building a Murder Mystery

What Is a Red Herring? The Essential Elements of Mystery • Red Herrings: "That could be it!" but it's It means a misleading Agatha Christie said that she always not. Red herrings are essential so the clue, something intended started her stories with reader doesn't figure out the ending to divert attention from • the murder before the end, if then.We need those the real issue—alluding and asked how, who, and why— other possibilities to stay on the hunt. to the strong smell • the method, Christie might mislead with information and color of smoked • the murderer's identity, and about another event or lesser crime salted herring (before • the motive. refrigeration). Knowing all that, she could then consider • Suspects: Some characters seem Red herrings are crucial • the other suspects and more suspicious than others, and in a to good mystery writing. • their motives. mystery the murderer must be virtually Lastly, she would figure out invisible. Alibis figure in this ploy, for • the clues and sometimes a sound can prove • the red herrings, untrue. The least likely suspect often since, like a maze, in a murder mystery proved to be the perpetrator in Christy there must be a true path and also mysteries. many paths that lead to dead ends. Disguise also affects the portrayal of suspects, as some suspects change Christie's Devices: The Mystery their appearance or entire identity. In Writer's Toolkit what role could someone be beyond • The Murder: Mysteries are filled with suspicion? Long lost family members? actual murders, attempted murders, Servants? Christy plays with identity and even fake murders. One murder, with and without disguises in her tales. Name That Sleuth! the real one, may occur amid others, After creating Hercule or the murderer can appear to be the • Witnesses/Testimony: Gathering Poirot, Christie tired of intended target. Christie used all these information depends on witness him but her readers did devices and more to complicate the testimony and the observations not. Miss Marple amused hunt. of others present, especially the her more, and she also • Amid an urban center, anyone could be "unseen" ones such as servants. created other detectives, the murderer, but in a "locked room" Naming a murderer too soon can including one who dealt or "closed community" only a fixed suggest the real one is still on the with the supernatural number of people can be suspects. loose, and servants see and hear (very un-Poirot- like) Christie uses this tactic to enhance the far more than one might suspect. whose name was Harley reader's chance to play detective. Christy rarely uses a real servant as Quin [i.e. Harlequin]. • Clues: the mystery has to have a a murderer, but witness testimony Think of three names drawn solution, solid and credible but far should be kept in mind. from known figures or from obvious. Christie often planted ideas that might make clues early in the story but played • The Revelation: Christy likes to interesting detectives! them down amid a host of red herrings save the solution for the very end, and other clues. completing the puzzle with the Information adapted from explanation and often based on the The Christie Mystery page @ sleuth's intuition as well as reasoning. www.christiemystery.co.uk

"Well, if one of you gets murdered, you'll have yourself to blame."

"EVERYONE IS UNDER SUSPICION." 6 The Mousetrap

by Agatha Christie Howyoudo a Whodunit in The Mousetrap

Writers of murder mysteries credit The Past Is Prologue Agatha Christie with creating or perfecting The murders in The Mousetrap occur several motifs of the classic murder mystery. in the present, but the motives stem from The classic murder tale involves: another crime, or set of crimes, in the • a murder being committed past—the Longridge Farm case, which all those present recall. Early in the war three • a number of suspects, all of whom children, the policeman says, were "brought have secrets before the court as in need of care and The Mousetrap depends on: • a detective who uncovers the protection. A home was found for them with • isolation secrets and the murderer • strangers Mr. and Mrs. Stanning at Longridge Farm. • amid shocking turns at the finale. • secrets One of the children subsequently died as • a big house with many rooms At the end of many Christie mysteries, the a result of criminal neglect and persistent • questions being asked detective gathers the suspects in one ill-treatment." room, explains the deductive process One child died, but two survived, and of coming to a conclusion, and identifies no one now knows where either is. Mrs. the murderer. Stanning, one of the perpetrators of the In The Mousetrap abuse, was the first murder victim, strangled The play opens with a murder in her apartment. Near the crime scene was occurring in the blackout, a murder we found a notebook containing two addresses, hear reported on the radio, but which the site of the first murder in London and seems irrelevant to the arrival of four Monkswell Manor—and the words three guests and a stranded motorist at the blind mice. So we are awaiting the deaths newly opened Monkswell Manor Guest of two more "mice," and the tune of the House during a snow storm. That is, until nursery rhyme echoes through the play. a policeman arrives to say evidence Longridge Farm is in the vicinity of at the first murder scene suggests Monkswell Manor. Several of those present An English country house someone in the guest house may be the were more intimately involved than at first in the snow, though not as next victim—then there is a second murder, much snow as at Monkswell appears, hence the . Christie Manor in The Mousetrap now in the guest house drawing room. crafts a tightly plotted tale, full of suggestive Thus One gratifies us with two statements and red herrings, clues and murders, some seven suspects, and a conundrums. policeman asking questions. We are well Moreover, as sometimes happened in into the suspense and mystery. her work, the initial radio audience in 1947 In Act Two we learn many more secrets might have realized that the past crime was as the twists the suspicion from one inspired by an actual incident in England. suspect to another. Everyone feels others In 1945 young Dennis O'Neill had died are lying or are not what they seem. In one from abuse as a foster child in . case they are right, and in a shocking turn Such events are the stuff of real life, not the policeman's experiment does indeed just of detective fiction—and so are the reveal the culprit. scars they leave. Suspense + plot twists + perpetrator identified = one Agatha Christie whodunit.

"Good Lord, he's not suggesting that somebody is going to be killed here?"

"EVERYONE IS UNDER SUSPICION." 7 The Mousetrap

by Agatha Christie Debating the Value of Detective Stories

In literature, many popular forms of committed the original crime and who fiction can be categorized as was going to commit the next one? … literature—fantasy, , the [in the novels] Nobody seems guiltless, Auden's Double Reversal romance (with Fabio on the cover), thrillers nobody seems safe, and then, suddenly, or spy stories, and crime or detective/murder the murderer … has been caught by an False Innocence mystery tales. In all these forms, a resolution infallible Power … who knows exactly | or eventual order is always possible that where to fix the guilt. Revelation of presence of guilt may not seem possible in the reality or Several mystery-loving essayists | apparent disorder of everyday life—in the answered Wilson's charges, including W. False location of guilt stories, the good guys can triumph; true H. Auden, a self-proclaimed mystery addict. | love can overcome the odds; the violent, Location of real guilt He puts Wilson's final comment in personal, greedy plots of the evil can be thwarted; | spiritual terms and claimed that guilt and Catharsis innocence and guilt can be established. the solution are the form's appeal: "the | Escape literature is the media version of interest of the detective story is the dialectic True innocence comfort food; it may have comparatively of innocence and guilt." The detective empty calories to a nutritionist but it tastes form has Aristotelian Concealment and so good. Manifestation, and also "a double reversal Edmund Wilson vs. W. H. Auden from apparent guilt to innocence and from One American literary critic, Edmund apparent innocence to guilt." Wilson, in 1944 asked why people read Murder, he argues, is an offense against detective fiction, a form he did not God and society because there can be no care for. He proceeded to explore restitution, so society must act in place several contemporary examples, of the victim and "demand atonement or including Agatha Christie. His grant forgiveness." The more Eden-like conclusion was dismissive. the milieu, the starker the contrast of the Agatha Christie, he had heard, murder, "by which innocence is lost, and the offered "ingenuity," and that he individual and the law become opposed to admits, not having discerned the each other." Thus, "the job of the detective killer, but he finds that "Mrs. Christie, is to restore the state of grace." in proportion as she is more expert For Auden, detective tales appeal to and concentrates more narrowly an awareness of guilt and sin: "the magic near on the puzzle, has to eliminate human formula is an innocence which is discovered (home of Christie's brother- interest completely … it is all sleight-of- in-law and sister), which she to contain guilt; then a suspicion of being the hand trickery." used as the model for her guilty one; and finally a real innocence from fictive manor houses; she In explaining the inter-war popularity of which the guilty other has been expelled … planned many of her stories the form, he opines its unreality: by the miraculous intervention of a genius walking in the privacy of its the world during those years was ridden from outside who removes guilt by giving landscape by an all-pervasive feeling of guilt and knowledge of guilt." Eden is restored. by a fear of impending disaster which it So is there value in "escape"? seemed hopeless to try to avert because it never seemed conclusively possible to pin down the responsibility. Who has

"It's a trap. I know it is."

"EVERYONE IS UNDER SUSPICION." 8 The Mousetrap

by Agatha Christie Activities for The Mousetrap

Post-Production Discussion that school-age wizard who must Fear • Now knowing "whodunit," what were confront the Dark Lord, a young hobbit • The radio show broadcast the clues that led to the culprit's who must walk into Mordor. we hear briefly near discovery? How could you have What is the value of escape literature— the end of Act 1 says, known the culprit along the way? which extends beyond fantasy and sci "to understand … the • What were the red herrings that led fi into romances, thrillers, and crime mechanics of fear, you you away from suspecting the actual fiction/murder mysteries? Why are have to study the precise culprit? How did they work? these so popular in video or print? effect produced on the • How did the detective do his work? What do they say about the world we human mind." [Perhaps • How did Agatha Christie do her work in live in and our place in it? About the you'd have to listen to setting up the mystery? power or place of the individual? a lot of BBC Radio to • Were all the characters two-dimensional About what we want to escape (and appreciate how common (as Edmund Wilson claims) or did perhaps really can't) and how we such a comment on air some or all have development? would like the world to be (if only it might be. As a listener could be)? I've gone from peas to Spoiler Alert • Justify your favorite form of escape— in the space of 5 • Agatha Christie and for over 60 years sports, action flicks, sci fi novels, minutes on BBC 4.] the play's producers have made an computer games, Jane Austen stories, Why do we hear this anti-spoiler request: "Now that you whatever. What makes them tick and particular snippet? Is it a have seen The Mousetrap you are why do you like them? What do they metadramatic comment our partners in crime, and we ask you offer? Are they all "games" we play for about the mystery we are to preserve the tradition by keeping a time and then re-enter "reality"? watching? Their fear and/ the secret of whodunit locked in your or our fear? hearts." What are the mechanics of How much of the appeal and fun of Do It Yourself—That Is, Write Your fear? a murder mystery is figuring out or Own Mystery Are there other discovering whodunit? If you knew at • Write your own school detective story— metadramatic comments the start, would the experience be the without actually killing someone. in the play? same? Whodunit can involve who "killed" Compare it to knowing the result of an the computer in the lab, who "killed" important sports event before you the chance for everyone to have a watch it—do you watch the same promised treat, who "killed" school way? Do you watch at all? Should we spirit, who "killed" the pizza in the respect the no-spoiler request? Is it cafeteria and left only the liver, who Nursery Rhymes part of the art? Is that fair? "killed" the mascot's costume. • What is the relevance of A school or classroom can be the "Three Blind Mice" to the Forms of Escape closed society essential to a mystery. play? How many threes • Escapist literature is all the rage in Everyone asserts individual innocence are there? young adult stories—glittery vampires, but everyone is suspect. How do you • What is the relevance of a female archer confronting the determine the culprit? What are the the other nursery rhymes dystopian overlords, an everyday teen clues? What are the red herrings? mentioned? getting immersed in Greek , Who discovers the culprit and how?

"The killer's enjoying this."

"EVERYONE IS UNDER SUSPICION." The Mousetrap

by Agatha Christie 2016-2017 SchoolFest Sponsors

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