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77-2440 LaBORDE, Charles Bernard, Jr., 1949- FORM AND FORMULA IN DETECTIVE DRAMA: A STRUCTURAL STUDY OF SELECTED TWENTIETH- CENTURY MYSTERY PLAYS. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1976 Theater Xerox University Microfilms,Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 © 1976 CHARLES BERNARD LaBORDE, JR. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED FORM AND FORMULA IN DETECTIVE DRAMA* A STRUCTURAL STUDY OF SELECTED TWENTIETH-CENTURY MYSTERY PLAYS DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Charles Bernard LaBorde, Jr., B.A., M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 1976 Reading Committee* Approved By Donald Glancy Roy Bowen Charles Ritter ^ A'dviser Department of Theatre ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am grateful to Professor Donald Glancy for his guidance In the writing of this dissertation and to the other members of my committee. Dr, Roy Bowen and Dr. Charles Ritter, for their criticism. I am also indebted to Dr. Clifford Ashby for suggesting to me that the topic of detective drama was suitable for exploration in a dissertation. ii VITA October 6, 19^9 .... Born - Beaumont, Texas 1971 ......... B.A., Lamar State College of Technology, Beaumont, Texas 1971-1973 .......... Teaching Assistant, Department of Speech and Theatre Arts, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas 1973 .............. M.A., Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas 1973-1975 ....... Teaching Associate, Department of Theatre, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1975-1976 ....... University Fellow, Graduate School, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio PUBLICATIONS "Sherlock Holmes on the Stage after William Gillette." Baker Street Journal. N. S., 2k (June 1974), 109-19. "Sherlock Holmes on the Stage: William Gillette," Accepted for publication by Baker Street Journal. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Theatre Studies in Criticism and Literature. Professors Donald Glancy and John Morrow Studies in History, Professor Clifford Ashby Studies in Production. Professors Hoy Bowen, Donald Glancy, Clifford Ashby, and Ronald Schulz iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...................... H VITA ....................................... iii INTRODUCTION ............................... 1 Chapter I. DEVELOPMENT OF THE MODERN MYSTERY ....... 7 II. MURDER-HOUSE MYSTERIES................. ^3 IIIl. POLICE PROCEDURALS. ................. 112 IV. PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLERS ............... 1^5 V. LESS RESTRICTIVE FORMULAS.............. 171 VI. VARIATIONS............................ 195 VII, COMIC MYSTERIES...................... 219 VIII. CONCLUSION............................ 237 APPENDIX ................. ..................... GLOSSARY................................... 303 BIBLIOGRAPHY............................... 305 iv INTRODUCTION This study deals with a type of play, the modern detective drama (or, simply, the "mystery"), that derives much of its popularity from man's fascination with crime, specifically with the solution of particularly puzzling crimes. Such an interest in criminal activi­ ties has manifested itself in countless literary works over the cen­ turies; however, in the mid-nineteenth century the mystery form it­ self appeared when Its essential element, the prolonged concealment of the solution to a crime, was integrated with a standard adventure story depicting criminal activity. The success of the early efforts written in short-story form soon led to stage mysteries, which en­ joyed a similar popularity. In the twentieth century, mystery plays have occupied a particularly significant place in the theatre and, thus, are worthy of scholarly study, just as mystery fiction demands attention in any comprehensive examination of modern literature, A critic who ignores the mystery field is neglecting a body of twen­ tieth-century writing that is extensive in terms of both the number of works written and the popularity of the individual books or dramas. In the realm of narrative fiction, mystery writers rank among the most prolific and widely read of novelists. Few classic authors could claim readerships approaching those of Erie Stanley Gardner or Agatha Christie, both of whom sold hundreds of millions of copies of their mystery novels. Mystery plays have enjoyed similar successes. The number of mysteries that have been produced on Broadway and in the West End ranks in the hundreds. In the years before the mammoth runs of post-Oklahomal musical comedy, mystery dramas enjoyed some of the longest runs on the professional stage. Mystery, along with comedy and the musical, is one of the staples of the twentieth-century En­ glish-speaking stage. Occasionally a mystery rivals the other lead­ ing genres in popular appeal, as is attested by the successes of such disparate works as Arsenic and Old Lace and Sleuth. Furthermore, the longest running play in the history of world theatre is the current (1976) London production of Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, now in its twenty-third year. If popularity with the public is a measure of significance (and it certainly should be in an era in which the arts are struggling for survival and acceptance), then the mystery play is among the most worthy of forms for study in the twentieth century. Both mystery dramas and narrative mystery fiction have suf­ fered from unduly negative critical biases, most of them arising because of the popular appeal of the mystery format. Mystery lit­ erature in general has been viewed as a subgenre, a diversion with which the not-too-intelligent masses occupy themselves. In recent years that view has begun to change insofar as non-dramatic fiction is concerned.^ The first step in the transition of the mystery novel from a popular oddity to a respectable form of literature that was *For example, see "Women in Detective Fiction," Journal of Communication, 25 (Spring 1975)* 98-119. That scholarly publication devoted three articles in a single issue to detectives in novels and short stories. Nothing was noted on detective drama. 3 deserving of scholarly critical attention was the appearance of theo­ retical writings by authors and readers of mystery fiction. Such analyses drew attention to some of the better writers. Eventually modem scholarship embraced the works of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Ross Macdonald as being worthy of study and comparison with the likes of Hemingway and Steinbeck. No such transformation has occurred with the mystery play. It remains a major twentieth-century theatre form without detailed schol- 2 arly analyses of either its history, development, or structure. The only scholarly incursions into the realm of mystery dramas have been minor studies of individual writers, and none of those analyses have explored solely the mystery dramas of the writer being studied. Some scholars have looked at mystery novelists like Agatha Christie and Edgar Wallace, who have also written plays. Usually their studies have devoted minimal space to the dramatic contributions of the writers; critics have tended to focus upon the more acceptable criti­ cism of narrative fiction. Other scholars have examined the total output of playwrights who included mystery plays among their dramatic 2 The only attempts at a scholarly approach have been in the area of history and even those efforts are minimal. A single thesis has dealt somewhat tangentially with the history of detective plays; G, R. Jordan, "A Study of the Popularity of Detective Drama Produced on the New York Stage from 1899 to 1936," thes, Minnesota, 1933. In M. Willson Dlsher's Melodrama: Plots That Thrilled (New York: Mac­ millan, 195*0 , two brief chapters are devoted to nineteenth-century thrillers. The only other historical scholarship is a single chapter on the mystery play in Prank Rahlll's The World of Melodrama (Uni­ versity Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1967). In the Rahill book only thirteen pages are devoted to the mystery, while fifty-eight pages are spent on a single author of late eighteenth- century melodrama (Pixerecourt), compositions. Studies of Elmer Rice, Philip Barry, Owen Davis, and J. B. Priestley, for example, have been undertaken, but seldom if ever have those investigations included examinations of the writers* mystery plays qua mysteries. Exploration of the large field of mys­ tery drama has hardly begun. Since virtually the entirety of the body of mystery dramas is open for exploration and, thus, far transcends the practical magnitude of this initial study, several limitations have been placed upon the area of examination. Although there is a vast amount of mystery writing in most countries of the world, only published plays from England and the United States have been included. Moreover, the study is limited only to plays that have had substantially successful runs in New York or London (70 or more performances before 19^0 and 200 or more performances since 19^0). Even with such restrictions the body of plays for study would remain unmanageable. Therefore, only a single kind of mystery play has been examined. The type explored is the confined mystery, a drama in which a group of characters is detained primarily in a sin­ gle locale until a crime is solved. Confinement of the characters is achieved in several ways, such as by weather, geography, or a hu­ man force (police, for example). The application of such a restric­ tive guideline must of necessity be somewhat flexible in order to allow for variety in the body of plays. Nevertheless, even a loosely applied criterion such as confinement considerably limits the area of study. Excluded

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