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Curtain Up

Page 22

by Julius Green


  Unsurprisingly, the less ‘characterised’ Poirot did not suit Sullivan himself, and in October Cork wrote:

  Francis Sullivan came in to see me yesterday. I gather that he is not so keen on the Triangle at Rhodes idea, but he is very keen to make an arrangement for a play based on Death On The Nile, if the difficulties can be overcome. The complication that we particularly wanted to avoid was not to involve another Poirot subject while the present negotiations regarding a blanket Poirot film contract are in hand, but I find that Sullivan was more favourably inclined towards your idea of having the Poirot part played by say, a rather fleshy canon, as he would then enter into the action more, and even come under suspicion.5

  Agatha described to Max the moment when she persuaded her friend Sullivan to abandon Poirot, ‘leading him gently to the idea of Death On The Nile without Poirot – suggested instead a retired Barrister – a solicitor – a diplomat – a clergyman – canon or bishop. And suddenly he bit! His eyes half closed – “oh yes – purple silk front and a large cross” He saw it, you see. Not the speaking part – the appearance! I bet you whoever played Hamlet argued a good deal as to whether to play it in a hat or not!’6 Sullivan, as it happens, was at the time once again following in the footsteps of Charles Laughton by appearing in a short-lived revival of Laughton’s 1928 succès d’estime, A Man With Red Hair, produced by himself at the Ambassadors Theatre, directed by Black Coffee’s Andre van Gyseghem and designed by Danae Gaylen. The Times reviewer felt that Sullivan’s performance was no match for Laughton’s.

  The 1937 Poirot novel Death on the Nile confusingly shares a title with a 1934 short story featuring portly investigator Mr Parker Pyne, whose declared aim in life is to resolve unhappiness. Elements of this story are to be found in both the Death on the Nile novel and the 1938 Poirot novel Appointment with Death, and all of this material finds its ultimate source in a Nile cruise undertaken by Agatha and Max in 1933. Christie is likely to have been mightily relieved that Sullivan was not insistent on reprising his theatrical party piece as Poirot, and the character of the ‘fleshy canon’ who replaced him in the play (variously named in different versions of the script, but originally known as Canon Pennefather) perhaps owes more to Parker Pyne than to Poirot. Christie’s notes indicate that she had in fact experimented with adapting the original Parker Pyne short story for the stage, a venture from which Parker Pyne himself appears to have been similarly absent. The major significance of the switch from Poirot to Pennefather is that, as a character unknown to the audience, he can, as Sullivan himself noted, be portrayed as morally ambiguous and thus himself fall under suspicion in a way that Poirot couldn’t.

  By the end of 1942 the script, entitled Moon on the Nile, had been written; it is clearly an adaptation of the novel Death on the Nile, although without Poirot and with a much reduced, conflated and renamed dramatis personae. Amongst the absentees from the stage version are novelist Salome Otterbourne, who Christie had originally put down in her notes as ‘Mrs Pooper – cheap novelist’, a joke at her own expense (Max and Agatha referred to each other for reasons unknown as ‘Mr and Mrs Puper’). The dramatisation benefits instead from the introduction of the formidable Miss ffoliot-ffoulkes, one of a number of Bracknellesque grande dame characters which Christie drew particularly well for the stage. Agatha wrote to Max, ‘I have finished the Death From [sic] the Nile play. Larry very keen for it – I think I’ve written him quite a good part as Canon Pennefather – a kind of budding Archbishop of Canterbury and Sir W. Beveridge rolled into one!’7 The Beveridge Report, the foundation of the post-war Welfare State, had been published the previous week, and Canon Pennefather is raising funds for what his niece describes as ‘some wonderful scheme for rebuilding a new England – self-supporting communities and industries – a kind of Christianised Soviet it seems to me’.8 Agatha’s letter continues, ‘Sidney Smith [a distinguished archaeologist friend of the Mallowans] has lent me some books with good illustrations of Abu Simbel for Danae to enjoy herself with for the scenery.’

  On Christmas Eve Cork wrote to Christie, ‘I had a long session with the solicitor representing Mr Sullivan and the people who are going in with him on Moon on the Nile, and I am glad to say that we reached a consensus without giving up anything that mattered to us.’9 Three weeks later, Sullivan’s company Eleven Twenty Three Ltd paid £100 for a licence for the UK and its colonies, to be exercised within one year.10 A Broadway option could be taken up within two months of a London opening and, again provided the play was produced in London, Sullivan would benefit to the extent of one-third of the proceeds of any film sale of the original novel. Significantly, Sullivan did not pay a commissioning fee, as he had done to Arnold Ridley for Peril at End House, although the play had clearly been written at his behest. It was not, as has been implied elsewhere, a script that Christie took ‘off the shelf’ for him, and neither, as has also been suggested, did it pre-date the novel.

  In February 1943 Agatha wrote to Max, ‘Larry’s play will, I feel, go on – as I believe either he or Danae put up some of the money – Do hope it will be a success as I have convinced him that I characterise my books much better than Ridley.’11 But then, a week later, ‘Dead silence from Larry Sullivan but then Danae is getting on with the scenery – am now thinking of . . . a play about a WAAF (. . . spy drama!)’12 It seems that Moon on the Nile was being developed during Agatha’s regular weekend visits to the Sullivans’ house in Haslemere, which was to inspire the country house setting of her 1946 novel The Hollow.

  In the event, it was to be a year before the play, now retitled Hidden Horizon, opened for a short ‘try-out’ production at Dundee Repertory Theatre. Christie’s choice of titles, both the original and the replacement, is indicative of how she wished to avoid the characterisation of her stage work as thrillers. On one of the Christie archive’s copies of the script, carrying Sullivan’s address and presumably dating from some time in 1942, the title Moon on the Nile has been crossed out and ‘Hidden Horizon’ written in by hand. The phrase has echoes of Akhnaton’s ‘City of the Horizon’ and is mentioned in Act One of the play in this exchange between Canon Pennefather and the tormented Jackie as the Nile steamship cruiser Lotus, on which they are both passengers, is about to set sail:

  CANON PENNEFATHER: We shall be starting in a minute or two. Ahead of us is what the old Egyptians called the hidden horizon.

  JACKIE: (thoughtfully) Hidden Horizon.13

  Hidden Horizon, like the novel Towards Zero which was published six months after the play’s premiere, concerns a love triangle involving one man and two women, with all three protagonists present. The shipboard setting provides a claustrophobic, self-contained scenario that allows for the dramatis personae to intermingle in similarly isolated, if far less ominous, surroundings to those in Ten Little Niggers. Several of the characters are motivated by their financial circumstances: as well as Pennefather, for whom fundraising is a priority, those on board include a man who has spent years unsuccessfully seeking employment, a young woman who has been removed from the school and friends she loved as a result of her father losing his money, a doctor who has escaped his country after watching his hopes of an egalitarian society being destroyed by foreign investors, a maid who fears for her livelihood and a young communist who is concealing his aristocratic background. Christie considers these matters as someone whose own upbringing was affected by the financial instability caused by her father’s death and who, at time of writing, was unable to draw on any of her American earnings due to a debilitating dispute with the tax authorities there.

  Similarly to Ten Little Niggers, the ending of the stage adaptation was to prove particularly contentious. The original Moon on the Nile script sees the character of Jacqueline de Severac exit with a knife, clearly to take her own life as she does in the novel, and apparently with the endorsement of Canon Pennefather:

  Police are heard off . . .

  JACKIE: I feel so alone – so bewildered . . . I don’t know . . . Ah! (snatches u
p dagger) (Springs back triumphantly, watching him. He does not move. She stares at him in a bewildered way) Did you know I was going to do that?

  CANON: Yes, I knew.

  JACKIE: And you didn’t try to stop me?

  CANON: No.

  JACKIE: Then I can take my own way out?

  CANON: If you want to . . .

  JACKIE: (Slowly) I see – it’s to be my choice?

  (she goes slowly L carrying dagger and to doorway. CANON sits watching her go. His face very sad. Jackie looks at him, smiles, goes out)

  CURTAIN14

  Suicide, an idea which is also explored by Christie at around this time in Towards Zero and the stage version of Appointment with Death, was, however, clearly deemed to provide too downbeat an ending, and this scene was replaced in the copy of Hidden Horizon that was approved by the Lord Chamberlain’s office at the end of 1943 with

  JACKIE: Then I can take my own way out?

  CANON: If you want to . . .

  JACKIE: (Slowly) I see – it’s to be my choice?

  (She stands irresolute, dagger in hand. Voices come nearer – excited jabber.)

  JACKIE: All right, you win!

  (She tosses dagger out of window, flings up her chin defiantly. Canon rises. They stand hand in hand as Egyptian Police official enters.)

  CURTAIN15

  Although the weapon at some point changed from a knife to a gun, this is pretty well the ending in the French’s acting edition of 1948 and is the one that was used in the West End and on Broadway. It is radically different, and remarkably less dramatic, than Christie’s original intention. Even more fascinating, though, is an ‘alternative ending’ provided on a page following this one in later drafts of the script. To understand the significance of this, we should first take a look at the end of Act One, where the Canon urges Jackie to disembark the Lotus and avoid a confrontation with her former fiancé Simon and his new wife, Kay.

  CANON: We are casting off. For the last time I beg of you – not because of Kay’s peace of mind but for your own lasting peace, and your future happiness – get off this boat. Give up this journey.

  JACKIE: I wish – I almost wish I could (she speaks with deep weariness)

  CANON: But you can. There is always a moment when one can turn back – before it is too late. This is your moment. I beg of you, my very dear child . . .

  JACKIE: I wish you hadn’t been on board.

  CANON: (urgently) Go now.

  (she takes a step)

  SIMON: (off) No, Kay, we’ve got to go through with it.

  JACKIE: (her face changing) We’ve got to go through with it!

  And here is the quite astonishing ‘alternative ending’:

  JACKIE: Then I can take my own way out?

  CANON: If you want to . . .

  JACKIE: (Slowly) I see – it’s to be my choice?

  (There is a black out, the jabber of voices change to that at the end of Act 1. Sounds of paddles, bells ring.

  Lights on again. It is sunset at Shellal, as at the end of Act 1.

  Jackie standing swaying, her eyes shut.)

  CANON: I beg of you my very dear child. Go now, before it is too late . . .

  JACKIE: What – did – you – say?

  CANON: You’re ill.

  JACKIE: No. I’ve been seeing things – imagining them . . . as they might be . . . (shivers) Hidden Horizon.

  SIMON: (off) We’ve got to go through with it now, Kay.

  JACKIE: No, no – stop. I’m getting off . . .

  (Runs off. Simon enters)

  SIMON: What’s happened?

  (Paddles stop)

  CANON: Jacqueline has left the boat.

  CURTAIN16

  In other words, the whole of Acts Two and Three have been a sort of vision of the events that will unfold if Jackie stays on the boat. She has seen the ‘Hidden Horizon’ and the tragic consequences of her plan, and has decided not to proceed with it.

  Although much of Someone at the Window takes place in flashback, and she was later to experiment with time in Go Back for Murder, this is without doubt the most radical piece of dramatic construction undertaken by Christie and quite possibly was inspired by a similar device in J.B. Priestley’s 1932 play Dangerous Corner. It creates the requisite happy ending, but in a manner that is far more dramatically challenging than the one we have been left with. It reinforces the concept of the life-changing moment, which we first heard about in The Lie; and the significance of a young woman being given the ability to turn back the clock on a course of action that she will later deeply regret will not be lost on Christie aficionados. Also included at the end of the script, although to what purpose is unclear are the complete lyrics for the traditional American song ‘Frankie and Johnny’, with its refrain ‘He was my man but he done me wrong, so wrong.’

  The script submitted to the Lord Chamberlain’s office a few weeks before the Dundee opening still contains both the current and the ‘alternative’ endings, indicating that the alternative was under consideration until the very last minute. Indeed, there is even the possibility that it was used for the Dundee premiere, as critics of course would have been honour-bound not to reveal such a radical twist.

  In January 1944 Agatha wrote to Max, ‘I go to Dundee Monday for rehearsals of Hidden Horizon . . . if well received it may be put on in London as owing to the success of Ten Little Niggers “backers” are not now so hard to find. It’s mainly taken from Death on the Nile – but no Poirot. Larry is a Canon of the Church instead. Stephen [Glanville] has been supplying Arabic . . . for bead sellers and is really longing to come to Dundee himself but his life is rather complicated at present as he has his father with bronchitis . . .’17 A week later she wrote again, from the Royal British Hotel in Dundee:

  I am enjoying myself immensely. Really great fun. Feel I am practically producing [i.e. directing] the play myself . . . of course nobody knows their part and they get worse and worse and it seems as if we can’t possibly open on Monday! . . . Larry and Danae are great fun to be with. Danae is like a kind of general store. She has an immense trunk with her out of which come evening dresses for actresses, coffee and household milk, smelling salts for temperamental artistes – dictionary to look up words – soap, throat pastilles . . . It all takes place on the Lotus Nile steamer in the front observation saloon. First act just before leaving Shellal – 2nd and 3rd acts Abu Simbel. Larry is a canon and is toying with the idea of being a Bishop in the London production (if there is a London production!! “Backers” are coming to see it here!) Two Arab bead sellers . . . provide comic relief – Oh I do hope it will be a success – The end of course is chancy.18

  The reference to the ending being ‘chancy’ is an intriguing indication that the original Dundee production may have used the ‘alternative’ ending.

  In January 1944 the press in Dundee was full of the local rep’s ‘scoop’ in securing the new Agatha Christie play, and particularly the casting of ‘guest artist’ Francis L. Sullivan, the ‘well-known British film star’ who was to lead their regular company of actors. The choice of the five-year-old Dundee Repertory Theatre for the try-out production was no co-incidence; its director was none other than A.R. Whatmore, who had been artistic head of the Embassy Theatre for Alec Rea when Andre van Gyseghem directed Black Coffee there in 1930. The Dundee Evening Telegraph ran the headline ‘Rep Producer [i.e. director] Gave Actor First Big Chance – Why New Play Opens at Dundee’ and went on to explain:

  Mrs Agatha Christie, whose new play Hidden Horizon has its premiere at the Repertory Theatre on Monday night, wrote the play at the suggestion of Mr Francis L. Sullivan, who plays the lead. Mr Sullivan, who has appeared in several of Mrs Christie’s plays, notably in Black Coffee, was anxious for her to dramatise an Egyptian scene which had captured his imagination in one of her books. Mrs Christie described the play to the Telegraph and Post as ‘not a thriller – just a murder story’. She has known Mr Whatmore, of Dundee Repertory Company, for some time, and he has prod
uced one of her plays in London [i.e. he had directed Arnold Ridley’s Peril at End House]. Mr Sullivan explained that he had brought the play to Dundee. He has the option on it. Mr Whatmore had given him what he described as his ‘first big chance’ at the Embassy Theatre, in London in 1930, when he played in a number of plays including Black Coffee. He had intended for some time to play for Mr Whatmore in Dundee, and thought it would be a good chance to bring a new play when he had this particular interest in Hidden Horizon. Dundee Repertory Theatre is the only one doing fortnightly runs just now, and this afforded an excellent opportunity for rehearsing a new play. Mr Sullivan is playing the part of a High Anglican canon who becomes involved in a mystery while sailing on the Nile, and becomes amateur detective. His wife Danae Gaylen, the stage designer, has designed the sets.19

  Gaylen, of course, had also designed Whatmore’s production of Peril at End House.

  The paper’s reviewer concluded that ‘The play is definitely one which should “go”,’ but intriguingly also that ‘It would be helped by the elimination of a certain staginess from its last moments.’ This comment again raises the fascinating possibility that the production was played in Dundee with the ‘alternative ending’, as the image of Jackie awaiting arrest could hardly be described as ‘stagey’. According to the local critic, ‘Francis L. Sullivan gave a smooth, capable performance as the central figure, although there was no great call on his acting powers . . . Mrs Christie was present, but followed her usual custom of making no curtain appearance.’ A.R. Whatmore made a curtain speech about his association with Christie and Sullivan, having also played the small role of the Ship’s Manager (known at that point as Tibbotts). Cabaret singer Mischa de la Motte, one of the actors playing the beadsellers for whom Stephen Glanville had provided lines in Arabic, is credited with ‘oriental singing throughout the play’.20

 

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