The Mousetrap

My dear friend E. would like to know that one of the singers in the Milk Bar (Sophisto) in A Clockwork Orange is Gaye Brown, and that one can be just yards away from her now as she is playing Mrs Boyle in Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, St. Martin's Theatre, London. Her character is the only murdered seen on stage in the play. I would like better And Then There Were None, the only novel I have read by Agatha (in English). Nice: one by one, all characters are disappearing, a story full of murder and corpses.

Christie must've been a very unusual woman. I bought And Then There Were None in the summer of 2009 during my first visit to London, and the novel drew my attention because of its simplicity. There is no big, soundly sentences or descriptions in her novel (and I guess, I would expect, in all her novels). Her writing is direct and simple. I must say that I found nothing remarkable in her style, nor anything valuable or original. What really surprised me is Christie's capacity to picture the psychology of her characters so deeply and full of contrast with a sole writing technique based on -apparently- heavy brushstrokes. That and, of course, her ability to create thrillers.

I reached the very same conclusion today with The Mousetrap. It is amazing how she plays around with the feelings and minds of her characters, making them puppets, but profound, rich, real puppets. And she does so readily that it looks like all comes naturally from the story.

And that's why I say that Christie must've been an unusual woman. I found The Mousetrap a very British story. But behind the conventions, the good manners, the stylish costum (trains, tickets, the Evening Standard, the weather, etc.), the ceremonials and all the titles, there you see on stage the lives of very unconventional characters: underneath their skins, a river full of shameless and burning emotions is running wild. In the play, she makes fools out of their characters against conventions (have them in and out the house through a window or play piano with one finger), makes the pretend-to-be sergeant lose his nerves because someone steals his skies, shakes to ruins the trust of the young married couple with a gust of doubt and suspicion, makes the poor Christopher Wren (a crazy, apparently foolish artist who finds attractive a man in uniform) cry his heart out.

I don't know, but in the same way I suspect Mr. Shaw had an ace in his sleeve when writing Pymalion, a hidden purpose somewhere, the script of The Mousetrap makes me suspect likewise of Agatha Christie. She was up to something more. The ending is surprising, sounds artificial, but, alas! You realize she was playing games, perhaps. After all the psychological thriller, she resolves the crisis of the marriage naturally but childishly, and ends up the whole thing with a conventional scene of burned-out pudding. And everybody laughs... After all the unsettling (and I see that the story can be very unsettling), Christie says "that's all folks, have a good night!", by a simple (though not-out-of-the-blue) scene of British tradition and composure... What a woman she must've been.

I am not sure whether or not the play is aging nicely. It lacks of something, not sure what, rhythm, sometimes, perhaps energy... . People get cold at times, you feel, and laughs are not entirely enjoyable.

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