Curtain Up (52 page)

Sixty-nine-year-old New Yorker Miller was well known on the London theatre scene, where he was involved in the St James's Theatre, and had enjoyed success as a producer on both sides of the Atlantic. Indeed, it was as a West End producer that Miller had first made his mark, clocking up sixteen West End productions, including the 1916 hit
Daddy Long Legs
, before his first Broadway venture in 1922. His London years had been notable for a successful business relationship with Gerald du Maurier, and although since the 1930s he had focused more on his work in New York, he continued to produce regularly in London as well. No one could have been better positioned to deal with the issues surrounding the presentation of Christie's sometimes very ‘English' work on Broadway, and Miller personified a showbiz pizzazz that Saunders and Cork had doubtless found lacking in their seemingly interminable dealings with the Shuberts' lawyers.

Ably supported by his Hungarian general manager, George Banyai, Miller was very much the man of the moment in New York; in 1951 he had presented the Oliviers in a transfer of their London success alternating Shaw's
Caesar and Cleopatra
with Shakespeare's
Antony and Cleopatra
and, by way of contrast, had introduced Broadway to twenty-two-year-old Audrey Hepburn in
Gigi
. His
Times
obituary would note that ‘Miller's association with a play was a guarantee that, whether it was by Harold Pinter or Terence Rattigan, by Anouilh or Agatha Christie, it would be presented with theatrical glitter, excitement and a conscientious regard for its style and purpose.'
⁴¹
Better still, Miller operated Henry Miller's Theatre (now the Stephen Sondheim), founded by his father in 1918, a truly independent concern that had escaped the clutches of the Shuberts. And it was here that
Witness for the Prosecution
was destined to find its Broadway home.

‘A lot of American producers wanted to buy
Witness for the Prosecution
,' writes Saunders, ‘and I decided to co-produce it with Gilbert Miller, chiefly because he seemed quite happy for me to take a much more active part in the production than the others wanted me to do.'
⁴²
It was perhaps because Miller
was such a well-known figure on the London scene that Cork and Saunders felt confident to draw up the American paperwork themselves and, despite the tortuous
debâcle
with the Shuberts over
The Hollow
, that they once again did so without consulting Harold Ober and his lawyers. They did, however, take on board Ober's previous warning that it was essential to use the Dramatists Guild Minimum Basic Agreement, ensuring that this labyrinthine document formed the basis of the contract. Additional paperwork
⁴³
specified that principal roles should be played as far as possible by Englishmen (leaving the large number of non-speaking roles to American Equity members) and emphasised that no changes to the script could be made without the author's permission. It was also explicitly stated that a share in the income from the sale of film rights would only be triggered by a minimum run of six weeks on Broadway.

Saunders had exercised his own American option,
⁴⁴
so the agreement was technically between him and Miller. It stipulated that he would receive 10 per cent of the Broadway box office (of which two-thirds was passed on to Christie) as well as 25 per cent of profits. The production was to be billed as co-produced by Peter Saunders, and he was to receive ‘first class transportation' to New York and ‘reasonable hotel and travel expenses' during rehearsals. The production's playbill,
⁴⁵
as well as its glossy souvenir brochure,
⁴⁶
does indeed clearly announce that it was presented by ‘Gilbert Miller and Peter Saunders', although one suspects that the playwright herself might have taken issue with the tagline describing the play as a ‘Murder Mystery'. I's were dotted and T's were crossed on matters relating to the division of income from stock rights (which were to prove a substantial source of earnings) and the date by which a production had to be achieved in order for Miller's licence to be activated; the latter was specified as 31 October 1954, subsequently extended to 30 November, failing which his £1,500 advance payment would be strictly non-refundable. All bases had been covered. Or so it seemed . . .

Miller signed his deal with Saunders on 27 November 1953,
⁴⁷
a month after the West End opening. Two months later he heard from Francis L. Sullivan, who had been notable by his absence from Christie's theatrical projects since relinquishing his role in
Murder on the Nile
to David Horne. With Horne now playing Robarts in London and Miller under pressure from Saunders to cast English actors, this was clearly an opportune moment for Christie's portly thespian friend, who had worked for Miller in London, to throw his hat into the ring: ‘A few months ago Mrs Mallowan, who is an old friend of mine, sent me the play
Witness for the Prosecution
as she thought the part of the QC for the defence would be an ideal part for me. Unfortunately I was engaged on a movie at the time and unable to do anything about it. Recently I heard from her again that you have now acquired the play for Broadway and so I am writing to you to ask you to consider me when you are casting the play. I am particularly anxious to do a play again as I have not done one for about five years, and think this part would suit me admirably. I hope you agree!'
⁴⁸

Like Saunders, Miller had found that performers and investors to whom he sent the script did not like the ending; indeed, correspondence indicates that, as well as half an hour of material being cut from the original, an alternative ending had been prepared in case audiences did not respond well to it on the pre-Broadway tour. There is no reference in the extensive Saunders–Christie casting correspondence to Sullivan ever having been offered the role in the West End production, but his letter to Miller was timely, and Miller wrote back immediately to say that he thought it would be an excellent idea for him to play Robarts. Saunders assisted the casting process by releasing Patricia Jessel from her West End contract in order to appear in the Broadway production, and another British actor, Ernest Clark – who had taken over the role of John Cristow for the West End production of
The Hollow
when Hubert Gregg left the cast in order to appear in Disney's
Robin Hood
– flew out to play Mayhew.

Relations between Saunders and Miller got off to a bumpy start when doubts were raised over the original short story's
copyright status in the USA, and when Miller discovered that Harold Ober had already sold some American television rights. Miller felt that this risked stealing the Broadway production's thunder and could also jeopardise the future sale of film rights. In the end it was confirmed that the television rights had only been sold for a number of one-off broadcasts, originally on the BBC in 1949 and then in America in 1950, and again in America in 1953, when a dramatised version had starred Edward G. Robinson. The television adaptations, being based on the original storyline, were not courtroom dramas (the BBC's had a cast of seven), and despite much heated correspondence on the subject, this all turned out to be something of a storm in a teacup.

It rang a bell with Edmund Cork, though, who remembered that when the 1953 television play was broadcast in America, Francis L. Sullivan had written to Christie to say that it would destroy any chance of a Broadway production. Christie's understandable concerns had been allayed by Ober's assurances that the broadcast would, in fact, create interest in the play. Now, believing that Sullivan was likely to be responsible for stirring up trouble with Miller as well, Cork wrote to Ober:

You ask what is behind all this. I cannot tell you definitely, but I have seen in the press that Miller proposes to star Francis Sullivan in this play. Sullivan has always been a thorn in our flesh – he was very close to Agatha at one time, and has always imagined himself as the embodiment of Hercule Poirot. On a number of occasions over the years he has tried to make trouble over the way we have handled the Christie property. You will remember that it was his cabling Agatha that started the previous excitement when Edward G. Robinson starred in the J. Walter Thomson television show. Sullivan is rather an overpowering person, and if, when Miller was fixing up the arrangement with him, he made heavy weather about the TV exploitation of the subject – about which apparently Miller was unaware – I can just imagine Miller writing rather an
intense letter to Saunders, which started the whole wretched business.
⁴⁹

All of this serves to highlight what an unknown quantity the new medium of television was when it came to the licensing of rights in the 1940s and 50s.

Sullivan was not the only Briton involved with Christie's stage work in the UK to make contact with Miller. Douglas Clarke-Smith, who played Myers the prosecuting counsel in the London production, reminded him that he had another Christie connection: ‘Did you know I produced [i.e. directed] Black Coffee for Alec Rea at the St Martin's in 1931 with Sullivan as Poirot. I have done four or five for Bronnie Albery since the war – they were all successes. Could I direct Witness for the Prosecution or something? If you do it in New York. Please. Yours ever, Clarkie.'
⁵⁰
Clarke-Smith, who had appeared alongside Sullivan and Wallace Douglas in the 1937 broadcast of
The Wasp's Nest
, and whose Oxford law degree made him well qualified for the role of Myers, didn't get the job, and sadly was to be involved in a serious domestic accident that would see Hubert Gregg standing in for him at the Winter Garden in the autumn of 1954.

In the meantime, Robert Lewis had been appointed director of the Broadway production. ‘Gilbert Miller had sent me a list of possible directors,' writes Saunders in
The Mousetrap Man
, ‘and I suggested Robert Lewis, whose productions of
Brigadoon
and
Teahouse of the August Moon
had been so brilliant. I couldn't have made a better choice . . . Bobby Lewis had never seen
Witness
in London and yet he directed it with exactly the same feel and touch.'
⁵¹
In fact, the general consensus was that Lewis's production was superior to Wallace Douglas's; hardly surprising given that this was an exciting and credible directorial appointment in the same league as Irene Hentschel and Peter Cotes. In the 1930s Lewis had been a founder-member of New York's Group Theatre, which took their inspiration from Constantin Stanislavski's pioneering work at the Moscow Art Theatre. Stanislavski's techniques, which informed his successful
interpretations of Chekhov's plays, are examined in some detail in
Theatre in Soviet Russia
by Andre van Gyseghem, the original director of
Black Coffee
at the Embassy Theatre before Clarke-Smith was put at the helm for its West End transfer. Stanislavski and New York's Group Theatre were to inspire Peter Cotes' London experiments in ensemble theatre, and Lewis meanwhile went on to co-found New York's legendary Actors Studio in 1947 before leaving to focus on his career as one of Broadway's most successful and respected directors.

Although this is probably the first time that the names Constantin Stanislavski and Agatha Christie have appeared in the same sentence, it is interesting to note the associations between some of her most successful stage work and advocates of the Group Theatre ethic like Lewis, Cotes and van Gyseghem. Cotes adopted the title
No Star Nonsense
for his 1949 book championing ensemble theatre; and it was Christie's aversion to ‘star nonsense' from Laughton and Sullivan that led her to excise the character of Poirot from her stage work. When Hubert Gregg comments that Christie's plays were difficult to cast because each role only shines briefly and then fades into the background,
⁵²
he is effectively identifying the fact that they are best delivered by an ensemble company. And when actress Mary Law remarks of Christie's dialogue that if actors ‘can make it real, make it sincere, then it works 100 per cent, let's face it, but if they can't it is better to give it up',
⁵³
she seems to be implying that it could be best suited to Stanislavskian ‘method' actors.

I am not implying that Christie herself was in any way a conscious disciple of the Group Theatre ethic, or that she would even have been aware of Stanislavski and his work. She knew that her plays needed stars in them to sell tickets, and even considered Charles Laughton ‘lucky' for her despite his comprehensive destruction of the role of Poirot. But it is interesting to note that her work shines when it is interpreted by those who have an appreciation of these methodologies; and it is perhaps ironic that
The Hollow
, with its Chekhovian resonances, was entrusted to the relatively lightweight Hubert Gregg. When Richard Attenborough recommended Peter Cotes as director
for
The Mousetrap
he would have been well aware of Cotes' commitment to ‘Group' work; now, on Broadway, a Christie play was again in the hands of an advocate of, and skilled practitioner in, ensemble theatre.

The pre-Broadway tour opened in New Haven on 18 November and it is clear that from the outset all was not well. Sullivan was slow to learn his part and erratic in its delivery; by the time the production reached its second touring date in Boston, he had lost his voice and was missing performances. In early December, with the Broadway opening a fortnight away, Miller's lieutenant George Banyai wrote to Saunders that there was ‘so far no improvement' in Sullivan and that Robert Lewis wanted him replaced as soon as possible ‘on a permanent basis'.
⁵⁴
Matters were made worse by the fact that business on tour was poor, although Saunders was able to reassure Banyai that this had also been the case on the pre-West End tour.

Clearly it was not practical to replace Sullivan before the Broadway premiere, but he appears to have been no more reliable once the production had opened in New York. Lewis, who was by that time in Hollywood directing
Anything Goes
for Paramount, wrote to Banyai, ‘As for Sullivan, I cannot tell you how shocked I am at the many letters and reports I receive about his sloppy performance. This is the first time this has ever happened to me in a production of mine and I frankly am at a loss how to act from this distance.'
⁵⁵
Sullivan, an egotist both on and off stage, of course represented the antithesis to Lewis' cherished ensemble ethic. To make matters worse, Miller agreed to give Sullivan a week off from the Broadway run to undertake a television role. Lewis was apoplectic, writing to Saunders, in whom he appears to have found an unexpected ally, ‘This is outrageous and I don't see why Agatha Christie permits such behaviour.'
⁵⁶