20 February 2019
2**
THE MIRROR CRACK’D
Adapted by Rachel Wagstaff from the novel by Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie remains a potent force. Her popularity has seen a resurgence with recent TV series written by Sarah Phelps. Brand new stage adaptations are less common – ‘The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side’ has made it to the cinema and two versions for TV, and now comes to the stage.
As Hollywood descends on a small English village, there is change in the air and skeletons are to be found in every cupboard – death isn’t far away either. To the jaunty notes of ‘Walking Back to Happiness’, the play opens with Miss Marple asleep in an armchair in what appears to be some kind of mausoleum. A cavernous room with secreted entrances and a vast, translucent back wall where figures are lit. They teem onto the stage gyrating and posing and fighting and, strangely, throwing a baby around! Was this really 1962? The year in question saw the publication both of the song and the book and offers something of a nightmare vision for the sleeping amateur sleuth. This is quickly followed by silhouette of a soldier being executed by firing squad – apparently an amour of Miss Marple in an invented backstory.
What follows is one of the more unusual presentations of a play I have seen. Miss Marple (Susie Blake), housebound because of a twisted ankle, and her stuffed shirt of a detective ‘nephew’, Inspector Craddock (Simon Shepherd), pick to pieces the events leading to the death of a village non-entity at a garden party given by the Hollywood stars. As they do so, the action is reproduced amidst them. Then, it is repeated from a different angle, and repeated again, and again and……. Sometimes, the reverse button is pushed and the actors do just that; it’s like playing with a video recorder. Film uses the technique of flashbacks frequently, but the process on stage is out of the ordinary and it is used a lot here. Alot. At times the action goes into slow motion as performers weave their way between each other and the various chairs on stage. At times you can think you are watching a ballet of some sorts rather than a play. There is a lot going on.
There have always been liberties taken with adaptations of Christie’s works. She has a tendency to overpopulate her novels and so characters are given the chop and sometimes, inexplicably, the plots are changed and the original person whodunnit becomes an innocent bystander. This version is no different. Characters are invented, dispensed with, relationships changed, motivations added and sexuality re-aligned. The basic story remains intact, but the surroundings are tampered with. My question is, why? Agatha Christie was a genius of plotting – do those adapting her work think they can do better? Do the alterations make the play more dramatic? Not really, they make it more muddled. Does making a character a lesbian add compassion and intrigue? No, it’s incongruous and just ticking a box. Does the single use of the F word in the final throes create tension and realism? No, it seems incredibly forced and wildly out of place – fine if it had been used several times already.
As referred to earlier, a brief backstory for Jane Marple is invented – as has been done on TV. Christie is sparing with her details and so the writer here wishes to offer more depth of character. Fair enough. Her first line, “Oh bugger”, offers a different aspect.
The actors perform manfully in the carefully choreographed presentation, but their two-dimensional characters are never ones you can warm to or care about. They are mostly ghastly anyway. Susie Blake is an intense and sad Miss Marple; restricted of movement, she has a wonderfully expressive face and you can see her thinking intensely throughout as she unravels the plot. Julia Hills is suitably fun as the gossip-loving friend Dolly Bantry while Simon Shepherd does what he can with the ineffectual Craddock. Suzanna Hamilton is a strong Marina Gregg, the faded Star and Joe Dixon is impressive as the film director husband, Jason Rudd. Huw Parmenter gives great swagger to Giuseppe Renzo, the butler and Katie Matsell makes the most of her professional debut.
This curious, uninvolving production provides a perfect example of style over substance. A little more time from the writer, Rachel Wagstaff, and the director, Melly Still, might have been well spent on the creation of some tension – there was none. I hate to use the word dull, but for a handful of audience members I could see, it must have been – they dropped off.
I have been a huge Agatha Christie fan for over 40 years and am no complete purist, but this clumsy adaptation left me disappointed, frustrated and not a little bored.
