Curtain Up (50 page)

Saunders' problems were not limited to the production's large, non-star cast and its outsize set. Despite the success of
The Hollow
and
The Mousetrap
(or maybe because of it), ‘the Group' was still not opening its doors to him and, once again, he found himself struggling to secure a West End theatre. The only one available was the independently owned Winter Garden, which Saunders had wisely turned down for
The Mousetrap
and which, according to him, was ‘the worst of all the white elephant theatres and an enormous sixteen hundred and forty seater . . . By this time all my capital had gone. I found I had underestimated the enormous cost of this production and I would be responsible for any excess. I was so scared of the Winter Garden that I would only agree to go there provided I could give one week's notice at any time within the first five days of the run.'
¹⁷
His contract with the Winter Garden confirms this unusual arrangement, and the fact that the theatre was prepared to offer such terms is indicative of how desperate they were to secure a production.
¹⁸

In order to help take the curse off the Winter Garden, Saunders engaged a ten-piece ‘entr'acte orchestra' to play before the performance and during the interval, having first obtained an agreement with the Musicians' Union that the musicians would be retained only so long as business permitted,
¹⁹
after which they would be replaced with the more usual Hammond organ. The leaflet advertising the production also boasts, ‘This theatre has now been entirely re-seated, with more leg room and wider and more comfortable seats for patrons. Clean towels and soap are provided in all cloakrooms – without charge of course.'
²⁰

Even booking theatres for the short pre-West End tour proved problematic, particularly when Howard & Wyndham suddenly and inexplicably cancelled an engagement at one of their
theatres. Following what Saunders believes to have been the personal intervention of Howard & Wyndham boss Prince Littler,
²¹
the booking was replaced with one at the Empire Theatre, Edinburgh, a variety theatre controlled by Moss Empires. Hardly ideal, but better than nothing; Saunders was grateful to Littler for getting involved, and where the Group was concerned there was nothing to be gained by arguing.

The tour opened on 28 September in Nottingham, where
The Hollow
and
The Mousetrap
had both started out, before moving on to Glasgow, Edinburgh and Sheffield. Notices were ‘mixed', even in Nottingham, while business, particularly at Sheffield, was not sufficient to sustain the size of the production. Saunders was clearly becoming nervous that he should have heeded Christie's ‘gipsy warning' and that the whole enterprise was indeed about to prove to be ‘Saunders' Folly'.

He needn't have worried. When
Witness for the Prosecution
opened at the Winter Garden on 28 October, its first night was, by all accounts, an unqualified triumph, magnified by the sheer size of the audience. Saunders writes:

If I had to choose my supreme moment in my theatre life this was it, and I shall never forget it as long as I live . . . Everything went perfectly. After innumerable curtain calls . . . the cast turned to the upper box where Agatha was sitting, and the entire company bowed. There was pandemonium in the theatre. Not only clapping and shouting, but people standing and waving. I have never in my life been at any theatre and heard such a reception. Dickie Attenborough had rushed round from
The Mousetrap
to be there at the end. John Mills was there, too, standing at the back of our box, clapping and cheering, and shouting as loudly as anyone. And Agatha Christie, completely stunned by the reception, was beaming and waving at the audience . . . as she left, she whispered to me the understatement of all time, ‘it's rather fun, isn't it?
²²

Max Mallowan recalls, ‘This is the only occasion on which I have known Agatha to enjoy the agony of a first night: from
the opening it was clear that this was a winner, and at the end the cast bowed in unison to the authoress. Peter Saunders, who produced a wonderful scenario and who has never stinted any production said that he had never seen the like of this
finale
in which one and all displayed their sincere admiration.'
²³

Malcolm MacDougall, a business contact of Saunders, had persuaded his client, a Mrs Duke, to invest £500 in the production, and wrote to Saunders to congratulate him and thank him for the first night tickets for his wife and himself. Saunders replied, ‘You mention my courage in taking this big theatre for this very big show, but I in turn would like to congratulate you on your courage in advising a client to put money into a show with a person that you know only slightly. I am certain that it will show a substantial profit.' Rather alarmingly, he continues, ‘I am terribly sorry about Gwenda's dress. I saw it from my box, and was about to come down and see if I could do anything when I saw the flames had been extinguished. I really think Mrs Duke should buy her a new dress.'
²⁴
The mind boggles.

In a week in which the Old Vic Company were presenting
King John
, the
Sunday Express
ran the headline ‘AGATHA TOPPLES THE BARD OFF HIS PEDESTAL' above a review that declared, ‘This is a rattling good play, Agatha Christie has the stuff of playwriting in her. Her paradox is that her characters are unreal, and yet she makes them live.
Witness For the Prosecution
, as a matter of fact, is a much better play than
King John
, which is also by a British author. Yes, the Old Vic is right to give us Shakespeare's failures as well as his successes . . . At any rate, it was Agatha Christie's week in the theatre, and not even Shakespeare can deprive her of that honour.'
²⁵

The
Daily Telegraph
remarked:

Of late there have been unhappy signs that the Winter Garden might be lost before long in the trackless hinterland of unexplored London, as happens to theatres when they go out of fashion.
But the production there last night of Agatha Christie's exciting murder trial
Witness for the Prosecution
puts it fairly back on the map again; this play might run for a century. Once more the Christie conjuring trick has come off. Once more in the plain sight of the audience the pea has been insinuated under the wrong thimble. Once more we have been led down the garden path – or at least I have . . . Apart from being a clever puzzle, this is an extremely actable play. Trial scenes are proverbially effective, and this one is jam for a number of players. Patricia Jessel in particular, as the German woman, gets a big chance and takes it in a big way. She gives a beautifully judged and controlled performance, and has a great share in the play's success.
²⁶

And the
Daily Express
reported the rapturous reception of the audience: ‘They cheered, they stamped, they shouted “Author!” All thirty of the cast bowed solemnly to a stage-box. But Agatha Christie, 62, sat alone in the dark, looking like Queen Victoria, smiling . . . “If you dare shine a light on me,” she had told her backer, Peter Saunders, “you'll never have another play of mine.” He kept faith . . . I salute Patricia Jessel for a brilliant impersonation as the wife. D.A. Clarke-Smith is an iron prosecuting attorney. And Mrs Christie is the most infuriating darling of them all.'
²⁷

The
Daily Mail
reported, ‘This is not only Agatha Christie's biggest play (it has a cast of thirty) but her best; an ingenious and absorbing murder thriller with more than the usual share of comedy . . . We have had court scenes often enough before, and impoverished young men accused of killing rich elderly women are no novelty but Miss Christie stirs these familiar ingredients into an evening of crisp excitement.'
²⁸
And the
Daily Mirror
joined it in applauding the playwright's successful experiment with the courtroom drama genre: ‘Agatha Christie must be happy this morning. While one thriller,
The Mousetrap
, is packing them in at the Ambassadors Theatre, another play of hers called
Witness for the Prosecution
opened with great success last night at the Winter Garden Theatre. The Old Bailey
murder trial is a good theatrical bet, but the way Miss Christie treats this one makes it outstanding . . .'
²⁹

One fascinating press analysis of the Christie theatrical phenomenon came the following August in an article in the
New York Herald Tribune
headlined ‘Second-Rate London Plays Have Rewarding Virtues'. In it, Walter F. Kerr compared the Broadway and West End theatregoing experiences, from the American perspective:

One of the nicest things about the London theatre is that you can go to a second-rate play on purpose.

You wouldn't do that in New York. You may, indeed, find yourself staring at second-rate stuff on Broadway with alarming frequency – but never because you meant to. If you wind up at a routine domestic comedy hereabouts it is only because someone has told you that it is really much more than a routine domestic comedy – that it is, in fact, first rate.

Or you may conceivably settle for an inferior entertainment out of sheer desperation, because you've got out of town friends on your hands and you can't get into anything you know to be better. The tacit understanding in the American theater is that every theater-going adventure is going to be – and had darn well better be – of the highest quality. An understandable bitterness is often the result.

The British theater is a great deal more candid and a great deal more relaxed about the matter. It offers, with no apologies at all, at least two flatly and imperturbably opposed levels of playgoing. During the current summer in London it is possible to satisfy one's presumably better higher tastes by traipsing off to the Haymarket, where John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson and Irene Worth are giving superb performances in a quasi-Chekhovian cameo called ‘A Day by the Sea' . . .

But it is also possible – in London – to turn squarely about and march off to an Agatha Christie thriller that doesn't pretend to be anything more than an Agatha Christie thriller.

Going to one of these straight-faced, but unmistakenly
genial, entertainments is, in fact, an experience exactly comparable to settling down for the evening with any detective novel you happen to fancy. As theater it is depressurized – casual, undemanding, irresponsible, amiable.

You drop in, let's say, on Miss Christie's ‘Witness for the Prosecution.' You notice at once that the hushed and slightly frigid atmosphere that pursues the ‘best' in theater is missing. The audience certainly hasn't dressed – what's good enough at noon around the house is good enough here. Nor has the tempo of the day undergone any solemn change for the worse: the playgoers are flushed, busy, noisy, pleasantly knockabout.

Even the ushers are at their chattiest and most companionable, the starch all gone from their uniform and manners. The actors are by no means embarrassed by the relatively primitive work they are called upon to do; they love it, are loved in return and are never above glancing directly at the audience for approval after a particularly good riposte.

When the evening is over, no one is in a hurry to go home. And no one hates himself for having come. He knew exactly what he was getting into . . .

The London theater is lucky I think. By refusing to be on its very best behaviour all the time, it has left room for the idler, the family outing and the lowbrow. (We have more or less effectively discouraged the lowbrow from bothering with Broadway.)

And the virtue of this amiable conspiracy isn't just that it keeps so many actors and writers at work. It has the good grace to invite a much larger segment of the public into the playhouse. It helps form a habit.
³⁰

In response, Saunders wrote to Kerr, not to object to the ‘lowbrow' label but to applaud his perspicacity in celebrating it. This was typical of former journalist Saunders' direct level of engagement with critics, and the letter provides a fine example of his committed and articulate advocacy of populist theatre:

My Dear Kerr,

I was most interested in your article, date lined London, August 14th, headed ‘Second rate London plays have rewarding virtues', as I produce plays – including ‘Witness For The Prosecution'.

At least I see in your article a clue as to why so many British plays fail on Broadway.

From what you say, the American theatregoers live on a diet of caviar and grilled nightingales' tongues on toast. There is no room for the hunk of bread and cheese.

London critics can be as devastating and hypercritical as those in New York. But in the past twenty years they have gradually come round to the view that they must judge plays not on the grounds of ‘Is it good?', but ‘Is it good of its kind?'

London critics have frequently panned plays, at the same time qualifying their disapproval with ‘The public liked it' and ‘The audience laughed hugely'. Those plays have frequently become box office successes, and yet the critics' integrity has been retained.

Now I think that these critics have done a vast service to the London theatre. The theatregoing public is no longer confined to London's West End, but is 90% comprised of the outlying districts and provincial towns. The critics, by not strangling at birth plays which are good in their own sphere, have encouraged a brand new theatregoing public. This same theatregoing public might have to be dragged into the theatre by Agatha Christie or broad farce, but they may end up by taking a look in at Chekhov.

I regret deeply that you say that lowbrows have been discouraged from bothering with Broadway. You cannot surely expect to have all the New York theatre full of what you call first-rate plays? Or if they are first-rate in type, some of them must be inevitably fifth rate in quality.

Is it not better to see a good play by Agatha Christie than a bad one by Chekhov? The wine connoisseur may disdain the common beer, but beer will always have a larger public than wine.