The Mousetrap

I recently saw a production of the world's longest-running play: Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap. Its twist ending (which I shall not spoil here) is a closely-guarded secret, to the point that Wikipedia has drawn criticism for spoiling it, and TV Tropes refuses to give it away at all. Though I am merely a casual theatre lover and a neophyte Christie reader, seeing The Mousetrap has been on my bucket list for years, so when I learned that Phoenix Players were staging a production at The Gladstone, I bought a ticket.

The play is set at a newly-opened hotel called Monkswell Manor. The owners, Mollie and Giles Ralston (played here by Monica Maika and Austin Beaty) haven't had time to hire any employees, and are clearly still figuring out the hotel business. Nonetheless, the rooms quickly fill with guests--the most cantankerous being Mrs Boyle (played by Lorraine Hopkins, who really sells how miserable her character is). Other guests include the eccentric Christopher Wren (Elle Attson); the retired military man, Major Metcalf (Peter Watson); the mysterious Mr. Paravicini (Dawn Ellis); and the well-travelled Miss Casewell (Miss Casewell), who Wikipedia describes as "mannish" and "masculine", though this aspect of the character is less obvious to a modern audience. These guests are followed by a road-blocking snowstorm and, soon afterwards, a sleuth named Sergeant Trotter (Thomas Brown), who informs the guests that a murderer is targeting one of them--a prediction that, naturally, comes true at the end of Act I.

The Mousetrap opens with the sound of an unseen murder, but is otherwise set entirely within the great hall of Monkswell Manor--anything that happens elsewhere is conveyed through dialogue or radio broadcasts (performed by Liz Szucs). Personally, I like it when a play limits itself to one setting. The beauty of the live theatre is that being in the same room as the actors helps make their characters feel more real--and it's easier for me to believe that I'm there with the characters if "there" doesn't keep changing.

The play also makes great use of music. The nursery rhyme "Three Blind Mice," and the accompanying music, is a recurring element of this play, and is often used with great success to build tension. Yes, the dark cover of a light-hearted song has been overused these days, but I never found myself rolling my eyes here: in this play, the technique works.

I can't and won't spoil the ending here, but then the best mysteries stories are worth telling for the build-up as well as for the reveal--and it goes without saying that Agatha Christie has written several of the best mystery stories. As with many of the Christie stories I've enjoyed, this one earns its ending by thoroughly understanding the rules of the genre, and how to twist them without breaking anything.

After a lengthy COVID-induced break from theatregoing, I've taken in a number of community theatre productions in the last year, and this one was my favourite in a long time. After years of wanting to see this play, I can honestly say that it has lived up to my expectations.