Theatre in Lethbridge

More than half a century since, I sat with my fiancée in the Ambassador’s Theatre in London, enjoying Richard Attenborough as Detective Sergeant Trotter in the (then fairly new) Agatha Christie thriller, “The Mousetrap.” Things have changed in the fifty some intervening years: ten Canadian prime ministers have come and gone, as have the same number of British prime ministers. Rather more dramatically, eleven American Presidents have passed us by: one as the result of an assassin’s bullet, another of impeachment, another disgraced by a scandal in his final years, and a fourth who went to War against an abstract noun (“terror”) and left the world with an unfinished sentence; a European Union appeared, and a Soviet Union disappeared; people walked on the moon, and sent robots to Mars; and there has been a communications revolution, miniaturising, digitalising, turning films to tape and disc, computerising, and making this blog possible.

And still “The Mousetrap” marches on. In  London, it has changed theatres a couple of times; whole casts have died off. But the play remains, breaking all theatrical records for longevity, world wide.

By contrast, the run of “The Mousetrap” presented by Lethbridge Playgoers, from the 3rd to the 6th of this month, seemed lamentably short.  Of course, it was the usual run for an amateur company, whose cast have other than acting fish to fry; but I say “lamentably short” because this production was by far and away the best thing that Playgoers has done since the glory days of Joan Waterfield and Lois Dongworth.

Director Eric Lowe had assembled a splendid cast of up-and-coming actors, two or three of whom gave truly memorable performances. In fact, Mr. Lowe’s achievement was greater than that: he succeeded in uniting town and gown; a feat attempted by many and successfully achieved by none. It was a delight to see university students, majoring in Theatre Arts, budding actors, trying their wings in a downtown production. Many of us had grieved for Playgoers, that local group which shares its own longevity record with “The Mousetrap”, in that it is the longest continuously running amateur theatrical group in the whole of Canada (in fact they antedate the Agatha Christie play by a couple of decades), and which, in the last twenty years or so, had been under siege. Membership in the Society had been eroded (many believe by the appearance on scene of  the University, and the run away growth of Lethbridge Musical and New West Theatres.) Although still taking its mandate seriously, organising its annual one-act drama  festival, Playgoers was reduced, it seemed, to one lighthearted dinner theatre piece, and one mainstage farce yearly. But just when it seemed that Playgoers itself was coming to the end of its long run, Eric Lowe has  given it a transfusion of lifeblood from its greatest competitor. This is by no means to denigrate the veterans in the cast, who also did a first class job, and who shared in the general enthusiasm.

In the ensuing remarks,  I shall take the characters at face value, thus  following the tradition that forbids revealing the outcome of this piece. So let me begin by saying that  this comparatively inexperienced cast enabled one old playgoer to see what it is  that has sustained Christie’s thriller all these years. First, “The Mousetrap” is tightly drawn: just as a boxing ring presents the irreducible minimum dramatic conflict (two performers trapped in a square of light, only one of whom will leave it standing), so the “Mousetrap” traps its few characters, literally, by a massive snowstorm in a manor  recently opened as a guest house. The fact that one of those trapped is a murderer ensures that several of the others may leave horizontally, and racks the tension up to its sticking point. Moreover, there is a satisfying shape in the play’s topography; for, although the action takes place in only one room of the manor, the other rooms are repeatedly sketched in our minds by the dialogue, until we have a solid floor plan of the place; and we are invited by Detective Sergeant Trotter to reconstruct the onstage murder (itself a creepy moment): to be sleuths in our own right, as if we are playing “Clue” with living people, and must decide whether the murder was committed by Mrs. Boyle in the Bedroom with a Knife, or Major Metcalf in the Library with a Blunt Instrument (neither of which is true, incidentally ).  And speaking of instruments, no thriller would be complete without its atmospheric effects; in this case the repeated sound of “Three Blind Mice” (the original title of the play, incidentally), played on an offstage piano– and connected to the fact that three murders are expected to be committed!

And who are the remarkable actors, who flesh out the shape of this piece? One or two I have already seen (and reviewed in the pages of the “Herald”), including the one who gives the most stellar performance, in my view, namely Angela Gabert, who impersonates Mollie Ralston, the aspiring young landlady of Monkswell Manor Guest House. Initial proof of her acting ability lies in the fact that two years ago, in “To Kill a Mocking Bird,”  she played the much older Mrs. Dubose, a snobbish lady from the Southern U.S., pushed around by a long-suffering servant in a wheelchair. However different the role, Gabert brings to Mollie Ralston the same intensity, the same concentration. From her very first entrance until the curtain she is at full throttle, her British accent as good as her Southern accent in Mockingbird, clearly studied to perfection. Mollie is newly married, and Gabert manages to convey something of the starry-eyed freshness of her relationship with her husband, Giles. And naturally the course of true love doesn’t run smoothly; so Ms Gabert is called upon to cover a wide range of emotions, and to collapse in tears more than once: all of which she does with ease and believability. (Indeed, she was genuinely overcome when presented with a well-deserved bouquet at the play’s end). All the cast were good; but I firmly believe that her authenticity and integrity went a long way towards ensuring the  willing suspension of disbelief  necessary to make “The Mousetrap” the success it undoubtedly was.

Craig McCue, who plays Giles, is a rather lightweight actor–literally: thin and tall and with a thinnish voice to boot. He is, of course, quite young: a freshman at the University of Lethbridge, whose previous experience has been in secondary school productions. Fortunately, he is also a most convincing actor; and, as the play progressed became a most acceptable husband and guest house proprietor.  I noted with satisfaction that, whenever he and Ms Gabert kissed, it seemed so right, somehow. Immediately, one knew the chemistry they had both worked hard to establish between them as husband and wife was there; for the embrace seemed so natural, as if they fitted together. McCue also carried his share of the comedy well, I thought; indeed, there were times when one might have imagined he was a fan of the British comedy series “Fawlty Towers,” as his voice and manner took on a John Cleese-like quality! We shall certainly see more of this fine young actor.

Andrew Merrigan played Christopher Wren, an eccentric architect, whose combination of bold outspokenness and childlike timidity both endeared and infuriated, as they were supposed to. He also is an undergraduate at the U of L, though his stage experience goes back to his infancy, and has carried him over two continents, tap dancing, playing musical theatre, and founding production companies.  He has a natural stage presence and a good voice.

Nancy Bridal plays the somewhat unpleasant character Mrs. Boyle, with great force and efficiency. Agatha Christie’s characters have often been referred to as stereotypes, but that is unfair. They are types, yes; but they exhibit eccentricities which are unique, and this is another reason why her plays are so enjoyable. Mrs. Boyle might be described as a “type,” but not a stereotype. She is reminiscent of other “grumbly guests,” such as the ones invented by British playwright, Terence Rattigan: Miss Winterton in “The Way to the Stars” (1945), and Mrs. Raillston-Bell in “Separate Tables” (1954). But we are all familiar with the loud complainer at the hotel desk, the noisy diner who insists on seeing the restaurant manager over a badly cooked potato, or to query a bill. There is something faintly comic to the audience about such a person, however irritating they may be to the other characters. Ms Bridal is an experienced actor–this time a Fine Arts graduate of the University of Lethbridge– currently teaching middle school in Lethbridge. I first saw her playing Soul in “Woman by a Window” at the  David Spinks Theatre, in which her solid acting of this ethereal but maternal role was wonderful. Clearly Ms Bridal (who has actually directed a successful musical with middle school students!) is an artist with numerous gifts, and I hope we shall see her on stage again soon.   Jeff Graham’s Mr. Paravicini was also a delight: wryly comic, eccentric (again), somewhat mysterious, he managed to intrigue us every time he appeared. Major Metcalf–another good old Agatha Christie type–was well-played by Stephen Graham, who did not overplay the typical stage Major, and thus made the figure very believable, and  Christina Haska was a credible Miss Casewell,–a somewhat difficult role, requiring a wide range of emotion.

Detective Sergeant Trotter was played by Justin Masson. This, too, is a testing role: he needed to dominate, to orchestrate, to direct, as it were, a play within a play (shades of the original “Mousetrap” in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet), and by and large, Masson was up to the task. But as an actor, he has one habit he must break. It is the same fault committed by the beginning piano student, who finds him or herself faced with a choice between playing the correct note and keeping time. Thinking correctness all important, the pupil stops, frequently, to replay a bar, or a phrase that s/he has misread, thus ruining the total effect of the piece. In the same way, Masson has a habit (or at least he had on the last night of the production) of misspeaking a word or phrase, and pausing to correct it. To be sure, the pauses, or breaks were miniscule, only a second or so in length; just long enough, however, to interrupt the flow of the play, to momentarily focus the audience not on the  character of Trotter, but on the fact that we were watching Justin Masson playing the character of Trotter. “Ars celare artis:” the purpose of art is to conceal art; and nowhere is this maxim more important than on the stage, where, if the mask slips, even for a moment, to reveal the face of the actor sweating beneath it, all credibility vanishes.  I may seem here to be straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel, as they say; but I overstress the point because in a thriller, the slightest disruption of dialogue destroys the tension it has taken such a long time to build.

Finally, however, thanks to the excellent acting of the entire cast, the play came through to a triumphant conclusion. It makes me suggest that Playgoers widen its repertoire a little. The choice does not lie between farce and murder. There are many plays that explore the human condition,  carry an excellent story, and are within the scope of a company that can tackle such a play as “The Mousetrap.” Staying within the English repertoire, for example, we have the “well-made” plays of  R.C. Sherriff, such as “The Long Sunset,”  Journey’s End,” and “Badger’s Green.” Also plays of Terence Rattigan, now enjoying a revival on the English stage. For some years, like Sherriff, maligned as a typical author of “pièces bien faites,” who had been supplanted by the newer, younger writers of raw, realistic plays, the author of “French without Tears, and “Flare Path,”  was thought to be passé. Shaw described him, derisively, as a “stage carpenter.” Well, stage carpenter he might have been, but he knew how to build strongly and well; and his plays repay the work it takes to put them on. As a youth I acted in his “The Winslow Boy,” and it was highly successful and played to packed houses. Recently his “Separate Tables” was revived at the Chichester festival. Might I recommend such a vehicle to the Playgoers?