Curtain Up (28 page)

       
CANON: No.

       
JACKIE: Then I
can
take my own way out?

       
CANON: If you want to . . .

       
JACKIE: (Slowly) I see – it's to be
my
choice?

       
(she goes slowly L carrying dagger and to doorway. CANON sits watching her go. His face very sad. Jackie looks at him, smiles, goes out)

CURTAIN
¹⁴

Suicide, an idea which is also explored by Christie at around this time in
Towards Zero
and the stage version of
Appointment with Death
, was, however, clearly deemed to provide too downbeat an ending, and this scene was replaced in the copy of
Hidden Horizon
that was approved by the Lord Chamberlain's office at the end of 1943 with

       
JACKIE: Then I
can
take my own way out?

       
CANON:
If
you want to . . .

JACKIE: (Slowly) I see – it's to be
my
choice?

(She stands irresolute, dagger in hand. Voices come nearer – excited jabber.)

JACKIE: All right, you win!

(She tosses dagger out of window, flings up her chin defiantly. Canon rises. They stand hand in hand as Egyptian Police official enters.)

       
CURTAIN
¹⁵

Although the weapon at some point changed from a knife to a gun, this is pretty well the ending in the French's acting edition of 1948 and is the one that was used in the West End and on Broadway. It is radically different, and remarkably less dramatic, than Christie's original intention. Even more fascinating, though, is an ‘alternative ending' provided on a page following this one in later drafts of the script. To understand the significance of this, we should first take a look at the end of Act One, where the Canon urges Jackie to disembark the
Lotus
and avoid a confrontation with her former fiancé Simon and his new wife, Kay.

       
CANON: We are casting off. For the last time I beg of you – not because of Kay's peace of mind but for your own lasting peace, and your future happiness – get off this boat. Give up this journey.

       
JACKIE: I wish – I almost wish I could (she speaks with deep weariness)

       
CANON: But you can. There is always a moment when one can turn back – before it is too late. This is your moment. I beg of you, my very dear child . . .

       
JACKIE: I wish you hadn't been on board.

       
CANON: (urgently) Go
now
.

       
(she takes a step)

       
SIMON: (off) No, Kay, we've got to go through with it.

       
JACKIE: (her face changing) We've got to go through with it!

And here is the quite astonishing ‘alternative ending':

       
JACKIE: Then I
can
take my own way out?

       
CANON:
If
you want to . . .

       
JACKIE: (Slowly) I see – it's to be
my
choice?

       
(There is a black out, the jabber of voices change to that at the end of Act 1. Sounds of paddles, bells ring.

Lights on again. It is sunset at Shellal, as at the end of Act 1.

Jackie standing swaying, her eyes shut.)

       
CANON: I beg of you my very dear child. Go now, before it is too late . . .

       
JACKIE: What – did – you – say?

       
CANON: You're ill.

       
JACKIE: No. I've been seeing things – imagining them . . . as they might be . . . (shivers)
Hidden Horizon.

       
SIMON: (off) We've got to go through with it now, Kay.

       
JACKIE: No, no – stop. I'm getting off . . .

       
(Runs off. Simon enters)

       
SIMON: What's happened?

       
(Paddles stop)

       
CANON: Jacqueline has left the boat.

CURTAIN
¹⁶

In other words, the whole of Acts Two and Three have been a sort of vision of the events that will unfold if Jackie stays on the boat. She has seen the ‘Hidden Horizon' and the tragic consequences of her plan, and has decided not to proceed with it.

Although much of
Someone at the Window
takes place in flashback, and she was later to experiment with time in
Go Back for Murder
, this is without doubt the most radical piece of dramatic construction undertaken by Christie and quite possibly was inspired by a similar device in J.B. Priestley's 1932 play
Dangerous Corner
. It creates the requisite happy ending, but in a manner that is far more dramatically challenging than the one we have been left with. It reinforces the concept of the life-changing moment, which we first heard about in
The Lie
; and the significance of a young woman being given the ability to turn back the clock on a course of action that she will later deeply regret will not be lost on Christie aficionados. Also included at the end of the script, although to what purpose is unclear are the complete lyrics for the traditional American song ‘Frankie and Johnny', with its refrain ‘He was my man but he done me wrong, so wrong.'

The script submitted to the Lord Chamberlain's office a few weeks before the Dundee opening still contains both the current and the ‘alternative' endings, indicating that the alternative was under consideration until the very last minute. Indeed, there is even the possibility that it was used for the Dundee premiere, as critics of course would have been honour-bound not to reveal such a radical twist.

In January 1944 Agatha wrote to Max, ‘I go to Dundee Monday for rehearsals of Hidden Horizon . . . if well received it may be put on in London as owing to the success of Ten
Little Niggers “backers” are not now so hard to find. It's mainly taken from Death on the Nile – but no Poirot. Larry is a Canon of the Church instead. Stephen [Glanville] has been supplying Arabic . . . for bead sellers and is really longing to come to Dundee himself but his life is rather complicated at present as he has his father with bronchitis . . .'
¹⁷
A week later she wrote again, from the Royal British Hotel in Dundee:

I am enjoying myself
immensely
. Really great fun. Feel I am practically producing [i.e. directing] the play myself . . . of course nobody knows their part and they get worse and worse and it seems as if we can't possibly open on Monday! . . . Larry and Danae are great fun to be with. Danae is like a kind of general store. She has an immense trunk with her out of which come evening dresses for actresses, coffee and household milk, smelling salts for temperamental artistes – dictionary to look up words – soap, throat pastilles . . . It all takes place on the Lotus Nile steamer in the front observation saloon. First act just before leaving Shellal – 2nd and 3rd acts Abu Simbel. Larry is a canon and is toying with the idea of being a Bishop in the London production (if there is a London production!! “Backers” are coming to see it here!) Two Arab bead sellers . . . provide comic relief – Oh I do hope it will be a success – The end of course is chancy.
¹⁸

The reference to the ending being ‘chancy' is an intriguing indication that the original Dundee production may have used the ‘alternative' ending.

In January 1944 the press in Dundee was full of the local rep's ‘scoop' in securing the new Agatha Christie play, and particularly the casting of ‘guest artist' Francis L. Sullivan, the ‘well-known British film star' who was to lead their regular company of actors. The choice of the five-year-old Dundee Repertory Theatre for the try-out production was no co-incidence; its director was none other than A.R. Whatmore,
who had been artistic head of the Embassy Theatre for Alec Rea when Andre van Gyseghem directed
Black Coffee
there in 1930. The
Dundee Evening Telegraph
ran the headline ‘Rep Producer [i.e. director] Gave Actor First Big Chance – Why New Play Opens at Dundee' and went on to explain:

Mrs Agatha Christie, whose new play
Hidden Horizon
has its premiere at the Repertory Theatre on Monday night, wrote the play at the suggestion of Mr Francis L. Sullivan, who plays the lead. Mr Sullivan, who has appeared in several of Mrs Christie's plays, notably in
Black Coffee
, was anxious for her to dramatise an Egyptian scene which had captured his imagination in one of her books. Mrs Christie described the play to the
Telegraph and Post
as ‘not a thriller – just a murder story'. She has known Mr Whatmore, of Dundee Repertory Company, for some time, and he has produced one of her plays in London [i.e. he had directed Arnold Ridley's
Peril at End House
]. Mr Sullivan explained that he had brought the play to Dundee. He has the option on it. Mr Whatmore had given him what he described as his ‘first big chance' at the Embassy Theatre, in London in 1930, when he played in a number of plays including
Black Coffee
. He had intended for some time to play for Mr Whatmore in Dundee, and thought it would be a good chance to bring a new play when he had this particular interest in
Hidden Horizon
. Dundee Repertory Theatre is the only one doing fortnightly runs just now, and this afforded an excellent opportunity for rehearsing a new play. Mr Sullivan is playing the part of a High Anglican canon who becomes involved in a mystery while sailing on the Nile, and becomes amateur detective. His wife Danae Gaylen, the stage designer, has designed the sets.
¹⁹

Gaylen, of course, had also designed Whatmore's production of
Peril at End House
.

The paper's reviewer concluded that ‘The play is definitely
one which should “go”,' but intriguingly also that ‘It would be helped by the elimination of a certain staginess from its last moments.' This comment again raises the fascinating possibility that the production was played in Dundee with the ‘alternative ending', as the image of Jackie awaiting arrest could hardly be described as ‘stagey'. According to the local critic, ‘Francis L. Sullivan gave a smooth, capable performance as the central figure, although there was no great call on his acting powers . . . Mrs Christie was present, but followed her usual custom of making no curtain appearance.' A.R. Whatmore made a curtain speech about his association with Christie and Sullivan, having also played the small role of the Ship's Manager (known at that point as Tibbotts). Cabaret singer Mischa de la Motte, one of the actors playing the beadsellers for whom Stephen Glanville had provided lines in Arabic, is credited with ‘oriental singing throughout the play'.
²⁰

Following its Dundee premiere, though, there was no news of
Hidden Horizon
for over a year. Agatha occasionally referred to the lack of progress in letters to Max but, after her initial optimism that it would be easy to finance, seems to have given up on the idea and turned her attention instead to a stage adaptation of another of her novels.

In May 1944, with his production of
Ten Little Niggers
still running in the West End, Bertie Meyer acquired the option to produce Christie's own stage adaptation of her 1938 novel
Appointment with Death
.
²¹
Neither Farndale nor the PES were involved on this occasion; instead, in November 1944, Meyer entered into a co-production agreement with Derrick de Marney, who put up £750, 25 per cent of the production's £3,000 capital. The cost of staging the production itself accounted for £2,000, with the remainder held as a reserve against running costs.
²²

Christie had written
Appointment with Death
immediately after the Dundee premiere of
Hidden Horizon
, and it similarly involves a group of English holidaymakers in a Middle Eastern
setting that she had visited with Max. This was undoubtedly an attempt on Meyer's part to repeat the success he had enjoyed with
Ten Little Niggers
, but unfortunately the script, although not without merit, would not have met the expectations of audiences who had been gripped by Christie's first big West End hit. The Christie archive contains no drafts or scripts for this play.

As a piece,
Appointment with Death
is a somewhat cumbersome, eighteen-hander, three-act drama, which sets the designer the challenge of moving the action from the King Solomon Hotel in Jerusalem to the Travellers' Camp at the Petra archaeological site. Again, Poirot is removed from the story, and there is a significant change in the outcome of the plot which aficionados of the detective genre may justifiably find frustrating but which, once again, demonstrates Christie's eagerness to experiment when adapting her work for the stage. The characterisation of the dramatis personae, and in particular of the Boynton family and its tyrannous matriarch, are of more interest to Christie the playwright than the trail of clues and, as so often in her stage work, ‘whydunit' takes precedence over ‘whodunit'. Though no match for it in terms of dramatic structure, the dialogue, in many cases, is sharper than that of
Ten Little Niggers
; and some relatively light-hearted political debate is provided through the introduction of Alderman Higgs as a down-to-earth nemesis for Lady Westholme, characterised in the play as a former Conservative MP, who is described by one of the other characters as ‘a political big bug. In her own eyes at any rate. She's always heckling the government about housing or equal pay for women. She was an under-secretary or something – but she lost her seat at the last election.' Christie seems to have cast Lady Westholme in the same mould as
Hidden Horizon
's Miss ffoliot-ffoulkes and, as in her previous play, the audience is invited to judge the character of the English abroad by the manner in which each of them addresses locals, particularly the staff who are looking after them. Here is Lady Westholme introducing the local guide to another member of the party: