Agatha Christie’s works translated to the stage tend to slip into parody as if the worlds and people she creates in her fiction, when put under a theatre’s bright lights, melt into cartoonish figures existing safely only on the page. But strong adaptations and productions of her work acknowledge her ability to precisely peg human nature as surely as F. Scott Fitzgerald does when “The Great Gatsby” describes Tom and Daisy as people who “smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness”—a description equally apt for many of Christie’s characters.
In the rock-solid production of Rachel Wagstaff’s new adaptation of Christie’s “The Mirror Crack’d” now at Houston’s Alley Theatre, such clear characterization dominates. Yet, ironically, the production’s clarity arises like steam from illusion and deception.
A contingent from Hollywood has descended like locusts on the village of St. Mary Mead, beyond the bustle of London and England’s industrial regions. It’s easy to imagine thatched roofs, small shops, narrow roads and narrower people star-struck by movie glamour that itself lives in gossipy motion picture magazines—all on the verge of fading away by the 1962 setting of the play. This is material perfect for parody, but it is balanced by Christie’s most ordinary detective: Miss Jane Marple, a spinster with iron-gray hair, and uncommon people sense. “I’m not clever,” she announces. “I just know what people are like.” She’s a constant knitter who’s “always been better at unraveling.” She can see the reality behind the easily parodied images.
These abilities enable her to see not just the crimes—and the plot is asplash with murders—but the dings and dents of everyday life that make human personalities rich in substance even when slight in surface.
The cast is anchored by Susan Koozin’s subtle and strong performance as Miss Marple. Not as frail or as flamboyant as some incarnations, Koozin’s Miss Marple is dogged in her questions, eagle-eyed in her observations, and calm in her revelations—less judgmental than vision giving. Indeed, like a mythological sybil, she is at her best when enabling others to envision the truths they have been blind to. In a scene where Miss Marple, held back by a sprained ankle, has to pull herself across the stage to reach a telephone, Koozin makes Miss Marple’s strengths evident despite her physical limitations. “You’re a spinster, not a detective,” the police inspector tells her, but Koozin turns that belittling label into a strength: “if you’ve a secret that’s troubling you, I have plenty of time to listen,” she tells the young woman hired to help her recuperate. And Koozin makes us believe she’ll be able to turn that listening into discoveries.
Similarly strong though totally different is the performance of Elizabeth Bunch as Marina Gregg, a fragile Hollywood star of the Golden Age seeking to return to glory through the movie being filmed in St. Mary Mead—a film about the deadly conflict between Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots. Her entrance is reminiscent of Gloria Swanson in “Sunset Boulevard, but slowly the script peels back the star to find the woman: her pain, intelligence, and grit. As a star, she is an obvious suspect, but Bunch by contrasting a realistic portrayal with her façade, creates a sympathetic figure who mystifies the audience.
These two stand out, but all the cast members are strong, especially David Rainey as Cyril Leigh, the spouse of the first murder victim and the person constantly turned away by every other character. He is the ignored clue, a cipher, a pathetic everyman who seems always on the edge of the mystery but who may see it more clearly than anyone else. It’s a role that is likely the play’s most political accent: the victim whom no one listens to.
But gloom, death, and psychological delving are far from the whole story. Wagstaff’s script adds moments of lightness to the plot–moments that director Delicia Turner Sonnenberg uses as grace notes to the horrors happening off-stage. She builds on Wagstaff’s balancing act in a way that sweetens the audience’s experience. And both writer and director benefit from Paige Hathaway’s beautiful and elaborate sets that take audiences from Miss Marple’s simple cottage to the majestic rooms of Gossington Hall, where the film company has settled in after displacing the local owner. The sliding of panels to open up new locations captures the sliding tensions of the play.
Few will guess the solution before the play lays it out, and the complexity of the resolution is perfect for this play that moves from a reference to Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott” in its title to a mention of T.S. Eliot’s poetry in its final scene. Nothing is as simple as the typical vision of Agatha Christie suggests it will be.
This production is part of the Alley’s Summer Chill series, and it ranks among the best I’ve seen. “The Mirror Crack’d” is a gem of a production, creating a vision as complex and sharp as mirror shards. For any cracks, it is a delightful whole.
“The Mirror Cracked” is on the Alley Theatre’s main Hubbard stage through Aug. 24.
Robert Donahoo is a professor at Sam Houston State University and writes theater reviews for The Courier.
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