Tami Martinson (Emily Brent) admires the wooden soldiers on the fireplace mantel. Courtesy photoOne by one, until they are all gone: this is the story of 10 people who find themselves trapped on an island in late 1930s off the coast of Devon. All have some guilt on their hands, and one at a time they begin to die. Los Alamos Little Theatre presents this classic whodunit, And Then There Were None. The show opens on Halloween night and continues through Nov. 22.
This is the second Agatha Christie show for director Dennis Powell. According to Powell, Agatha Christie is an incredibly interesting and creative author. Most people think of her as quintessential British, but she’s actually half American, as her father was a New York stockbroker.
As the youngest of three children, she was doted on, and when of age she was sent to several finishing schools in Paris.
Ultimately, she authored 80 detective novels and several romance novels under the pen name of Mary Westmacott. Her plots are masterfully crafted, and her book The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was voted the best all-time crime novel by the Crime Writers Association. Her book And Then There Were None is one of the bestselling novels of all time and is often considered her masterpiece. Despite getting the clues, readers (or viewers) often are left guessing as to who did it until the final denouement.
There are several film adaptations of And Then There Were None. Powell feels that few of these film versions do justice to the original script. In this production, people have the chance to see the show much as Christie wrote it, without the embellishment of scriptwriters and film locations. Powell hopes that audience members will say that the play was better than the movie. This is partly because there is something about live theater that tends to bring the audience into close identification with the cast, so that the emotional roller coaster carries both cast and audience to the final destination, he said.
Attending productions at Los Alamos Little Theatre is one way to support local non-profit performing arts groups in the community. Powell notes that over the last decade, fewer and fewer people attend live theater productions. Both nationally and locally, there has been an approximate one third reduction in attendance over the last decade, according to the National Endowment for the Arts. Movies and television shows are entertaining, but at the theater you can see your local actors, and each performance is different. It hasn’t been re-shot several times, edited, or re-colored. It is live theater where actors can make hilarious mistakes or deliver great performances.
In this play, some violence is shown onstage, though most of the grisly murders occur off stage. In the course of the plot, three loud gunshots will be heard. The language in the play is quite tame by modern standards. It is appropriate for children 10 years and older, but of course, the parent is the best judge of whether their child should attend the play.
Be unique, go against the trend, attend the Little Theatre and enjoy an Agatha Christie mystery! The show opens at 7:30 p.m. on Halloween night. It plays at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays for four weekends through Nov. 22. Tickets are $14 for adults, $12 for students and can be purchased at CB FOX, online at lalt.org, or at the door on each performance evening. Los Alamos Little Theatre is at 1670 Nectar St.