Curtain Up (26 page)

A confidential memo to Lee Shubert from Adolph Kaufman (who worked for the Shuberts' fearsome lawyer, William Klein) clarifies that ‘Miss Christie is involved in some tax litigation and wants to be kept out of it.'
⁴⁶
The Shuberts nonetheless required Christie to sign a warranty that she had assigned her interest, at least on paper, to Farndale and Meyer. Although the Shuberts were entitled to 50 per cent of income from ‘stock' (i.e. repertory) licensing, Kaufman, who was clearly as sharp as a knife, was particularly concerned that ‘reserved rights' (i.e. those in which they did not participate) could ‘very seriously interfere with the stage performance rights' if exercised by Christie. These included the amateur, broadcasting, television, operatic, musical comedy, play publishing and film rights. Undertakings had to be obtained that they would not in any event be exercised until after the Broadway run.
⁴⁷

With the film rights, Kaufman went one better. Critical to the Shuberts' involvement was a separate deal that they negotiated with RKO
⁴⁸
– who had bought the film rights to the novel in 1941 – whereby, following the Broadway opening, they had the option to purchase RKO's rights for $50,000. As it happens, the Shubert/RKO deal proved to be just the start of a complex and bitter series of wranglings concerning control of the film rights, about which no doubt another book will one day be written. In the meantime, de Courville himself was clearly playing both ends against the middle and ensuring that, whatever the outcome of the stage rights negotiations, it was a good one for himself. The fact that much of the key paperwork relating to the rights in the production does not appear to have
been signed until the day before the first Broadway performance, several weeks after the production's 5 June ‘out of town' opening in Washington, is evidence of the Shuberts' own confidence in the strength of their position; but the trouble they were clearly prepared to go to in order to safeguard their investment, and their apparent confidence in a lucrative outcome, is indicative of the value that they placed on Christie's play.

The Shuberts had in fact been keeping an eye on Christie's work for some time. An internal memo from their publicist gloats at the poor reviews received by upstart independent producer Jed Harris for Morton and Anderson's
The Fatal Alibi
in 1932,
⁴⁹
but their archive nonetheless includes file copies of the 1931 West End script of
Black Coffee
and of Frank Vosper's version of
Love From a Stranger
. The Shuberts were no doubt right in not considering
Black Coffee
to be Broadway material (it had, after all, only run in London for two months) and Christie's name, through no fault of her own, had so far been associated on Broadway only with two flops. So it is a tribute to the potency of the London success of
Ten Little Niggers
that the Shuberts elected to make the play Agatha Christie's own Broadway debut.

For its US publication in 1940, the title of the book had been changed to
And Then There Were None
. History may however have been kind to publisher Dodd, Mead & Co. in attributing a post-civil rights motivation to them in so doing. This was, after all, the same publisher who, some forty years earlier, had changed the title of Joseph Conrad's
The Nigger of the Narcissus
to
The Children of the Sea
. ‘I consented to change of title under protest,' wrote Conrad later when signing a copy. ‘The argument was that the American public would not read a book about a “Nigger”.'
⁵⁰
When Christie's play opened in 1944, America was a country where racial segregation was the norm in the Southern states and in the army that was fighting in Europe, and yet the musical
Carmen Jones
was enjoying huge success on Broadway (‘A performance by Negroes – yes – and they do a highly creditable job!' applauded
the
New York Times
⁵¹
). What is certain is that the play's original title would have had very different connotations in America than in the pre-
Empire
Windrush
UK.

The Shuberts, however, did not elect to adopt the book's new American title for the play, but instead came up with their own;
Ten Little Indians
(an alternative,
The Unknown Host
, had also been considered). As with the American edition of the novel, the protagonists of the poem at the centre of events were duly changed to the ‘Indians' of Septimus Winner's original American song of the same name, although their actual fates continued to follow Frank Green's English version. No correspondence exists to substantiate how, why or at whose instigation the play's British title was rejected, but the play's plot was certainly more attractive to Hollywood than the novel's, and it was effectively now identified as a separate intellectual property; a fact that was to strengthen the Shuberts' negotiations with film makers. There certainly appears to have been no shame in handing out audition scripts for Broadway carrying the original title, which also appears on the director's rehearsal script and the stage manager's prompt copy; and the first typescript of the Shuberts' rebranded version clearly states ‘Ten Little Niggers (Indians)'. In its direct reference to the play's ten potential murder victims, the Shuberts' title is certainly closer to Christie's original intention than that used for the novel in America, and it was perhaps felt that the reference to native Americans, whose ten befeathered silhouettes adorned the posters, added a touch of exotic mystery to proceedings for 1940s New York theatregoers. In any event, the new title clearly resonated with the American public in a way that the British one would not have done, and doubtless sold a great many more tickets than ‘The Unknown Host' would have.

Given the amount of negotiation and the extensive paperwork involved in preparing the production, Lee Shubert, who was by then seventy-three and still firing on all cylinders, must have been delighted with the financial outcome. The play opened at the Broadhurst Theatre on 27 June 1944 and trans
ferred to the Plymouth Theatre on 9 January 1945 where it ran until 30 June, clocking up a total of 426 Broadway performances. This is the first Christie-related stage work for which any accounts are available. An interim statement of operating profit from December 1944 shows that, with more than six months left to run, the Broadway production had repaid its set-up costs of $17,157.38 and generated a profit after running costs and royalties of $46,977.17.
⁵²
Of this, Hollywood talent agent Frank Orsatti received 10 per cent, presumably on behalf of a client or clients appearing in the production, and the Shuberts then split the balance 75/25 with de Courville, whose perspicacity seems to have paid off. A touring production which had been launched in October was already adding to the project's profitability. Never ones to miss a trick, the Shuberts negotiated a reduced author's royalty for the tour, which then ran well into 1946, latterly under licence to another producer. According to Christie biographer Laura Thompson, ‘The play of the book also ran on Broadway where it caught the attention of the theatrical impresario Lee Shubert.'
⁵³
I would say it probably did, given that he made a great deal of money out of it.

Probably of less concern to Shubert would have been the reviews, which were generally not as supportive as those for the London production had been. It does seem, though, that despite their reputation for penny-pinching, the Shuberts pushed the boat out with the production values. The production design by Howard Bray, which was based on that of the London production by Clifford Pember, came in for particular praise. The
New York Times
's verdict was that ‘The Messrs. Shubert and Albert De Courville have given the play a good American production. Like the number of corpses and potential corpses, all the ingredients were there. But as it turned out
Ten Little Indians
does not climb far above the potential stage.'
⁵⁴
Howard Barnes in the
Herald Tribune
felt that the play was ‘A high class melodrama . . . mannerly, literate and occasionally terrifying . . . a superior bit of nonsense . . . Miss Christie writes well for the theatre . . . the ending is definitely anti-climactic.
With the excellent acting and the taut staging by Albert de Courville, it still manages to be a pleasantly chilling hot-weather entertainment.'
⁵⁵
The
New York Post
remarked that ‘The change in ending, which will be pounced upon at once by all avid Christie readers, is in the interests of romance. It removes some of Mrs Christie's original ruthlessness, but it does not violently distort the plot, nobody is going to care very much, especially since she herself is credited with the dramatization.'
⁵⁶
The
New York Journal-American
lamented that the production ‘left me the way it found me, damp, dejected and disinterested'
⁵⁷
but the
New York Word-Telegram
countered that it was ‘Top-notch escapist stuff, sheer unmitigated, fantastic, enjoyable nonsense. Last night's audience were wildly enthusiastic about it.'
⁵⁸

It seems, however, that American audiences were watching a rather different play from that seen in Britain. Christie herself did not attend, but one suspects that she would have been horrified to see her work advertised variously as a ‘hilarious chiller thriller', a ‘hilarious mystery thriller' and a ‘superlative comedy mystery'.
⁵⁹
Significantly, when Cork requested a copy of the performance script for his records, Kaufman advised Lee Shubert to send him ‘the manuscript of the original play Ten Little Niggers as it was written by Miss Christie, and not the playing version which is being produced'.
⁶⁰

In the absence of a resonance with the inhabitants of a beleaguered island state, de Courville had clearly decided to play to his own strengths and direct the piece as straightforward comedy melodrama. In this context it still appears to have struck a chord as wartime entertainment, albeit in a far less sophisticated way than Hentschel's production. Again, the wartime context is evident in the playbill text, which includes the following notice from the Mayor of New York: ‘The way that the Theatre has responded to our defense effort is a matter of pride to every citizen, for the work of the Theatre in keeping up the morale of the members of our armed forces is something which in its way is as vital to our war effort as the production of additional military equipment.'
⁶¹

The playbill also carries a note that ‘Because of governmental
restrictions, The Playbill, in common with all publications, will have to curtail its consumption of paper. During this emergency it will not be possible to furnish a copy of The Playbill to every person. With your co-operation this regulation can be met without hardship if you will share your copy of The Playbill with your companion.' Paper was by no means the only thing in short supply. In the Shubert production office's day files, we find a certificate dated 7 December 1944 from the Office of Price Administration, Shoe Division, allowing the company to issue four pairs of rationed shoes to the actors and carrying the warning: ‘For you or anyone else to transfer these stamps or shoe ration check for any purpose other than that for which they are issued is a violation of the regulation and subjects violators to certain penalties.'

The day files give a fascinating insight into the running of a Broadway show in the 1940s, with the production team having to deal with a number of issues as they arise. Just as rehearsals were about to start it was discovered ‘by purest coincidence' that Pat O'Malley, playing the role of Blore, was British, and the Shuberts had to appeal to the actors' union, Equity, for permission to allow him to continue in the role: ‘The part of Blore is characterised as a provincial detective and written in the vernacular of that County (Devonshire, England). It requires a player thoroughly versed in the peculiar accent and dialect of that particular locality, and moreover, an artist with a sense of comedy.' Mr O'Malley, claimed the Shubert office, ‘will be a featured member of the cast, commanding one of the highest salaries in the play', and it was simply too late to replace him. ‘In view of the extraordinary circumstances and the impossibility of replacing Mr O'Malley at such short notice with an actor capable of playing this unique part . . . we trust that you will give this application your favourable consideration.'
⁶²
O'Malley was indeed amongst the production's highest earners. Veteran stage and film actor Halliwell Hobbes, playing Wargrave, and debonair Hollywood leading man Michael Whalen, playing Lombard, were earning $400 per week in performance, while O'Malley
was next in line on $350. However, whilst the character of Blore claims to operate a detective agency in Plymouth, the Shuberts are somewhat overstating the case about the necessity for a Devonshire accent (a good South African accent would actually be more useful for the role), and it seems that O'Malley's expertise in any case lay elsewhere when it came to accents; his playbill biography reveals that he ‘is a well-known radio personality, creator of such ether-famed favourites as Sam Small and 'Erbert Pinwinkle; his Lancashire dialect songs and stories have won him a wide following on the coast-to-coast networks, Hollywood and radio. This is his second US stage appearance.'

Even if they knew they were being bluffed, Equity decided not to take on the Shuberts over this matter, and replied the next day that, following a meeting, they had ‘granted your request permitting Equity members to work with Mr O'Malley, subject to all the rules and regulations of Equity's Alien Actor Policy, particularly the payment of the alien actor dues.'
⁶³
Less happy was the outcome for Claudia Morgan, playing Vera Claythorne, sacked by the Shuberts when a Sunday evening radio commitment of hers was rescheduled to Fridays, causing a scheduling clash with the play.