PlayGuide - "Murder on the Orient Express"

JUNE 1 - JULY 1, 2022 | QUADRACCI POWERHOUSE

PLAY GUIDE

Adapted for the stage by Ken Ludwig Directed by Annika Boras

www.MilwaukeeRep.com | 414-224-9490

JUNE 1 - JULY 1, 2022 | QUADRACCI POWERHOUSE

Adapted for the stage by Ken Ludwig | Directed by Annika Boras Corporate Sponsor

Executive Producers

Rebecca & Bryan House Tony and Beverly Petullo

Associate Producers

Judy & Gary Jorgensen Laura & Adam Peck Karen Plunkett

TABLE OF CONTENTS Synopsis....................................................................................................3

Mark Clements ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Chad Bauman EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR PLAYGUIDE WRITTEN BY

Lindsey Hoel-Neds CONTENT WRITER PLAYGUIDE EDITED BY

Deanie Vallone LITERARY DIRECTOR & ASSOCIATE ARTISTIC PRODUCER

Characters.......................................................................................................5 About Ken Ludwig.......................................................................................6 Orient Express on the Page, Stage, and Screen.................................7 Agatha Christie: A Master of Mystery....................................................8 Inspirations for Murder on the Orient Express...................................10 Hercule Poirot and Christie’s Other Famous Sleuths.....................13 A History of Mysteries...............................................................................14 Mysteries at Milwaukee Rep...................................................................15

Lisa Fulton CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER

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Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express – PlayGuide

O SYN PSIS n of Murder on the Hartford Stage productio it: T. Charles Erickson.

Orient Express. Photo Cred

The play opens with a scene of domestic tranquility, of a little girl getting ready for bed with her beloved nanny. Moments later, her bedroom door opens to a hulking shadow and the little girl screams.

Lights rise on the famed sleuth, Hercule Poirot, who addresses the audience, telling them about the story they will soon witness and the mystery that will soon unfold. After Poirot’s introduction, the audience joins him at the dining room of the Tokatlian Hotel in Istanbul in 1934. On the opposite side of the dining room, a young English woman, Mary Debenham, and her Scottish beau, Colonel Arbuthnot, speak in hushed tones and notice that Poirot is watching their interaction. Also in the dining room are Mrs. Hubbard, a flamboyant American, and a nervous young man, Hector McQueen, also American.

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As Poirot observes these characters, he is greeted by a friend, Monsieur Bouc, who lives in Istanbul.

Bouc runs the train line, and the famed Orient Express. Poirot had planned on vacationing in Istanbul, but has been called back to England for a case, and will be traveling on the train alongside Bouc, who is also headed back west.

On the train platform, passengers and workers bustle about preparing for their journey on the glamorous Orient Express. Michel, the conductor, is double-checking passengers and preparations. Princess Dragomiroff and Greta, a missionary and a paid assistant for the Princess, arrive on the platform and chat with Michel. Samuel Ratchett, a boisterous American businessman, scolds McQueen, who is in his employ and the audience met earlier at the hotel. They discuss a series of threatening letters that Ratchett has received. After a mix-up with Poirot’s accommodations is resolved, the Countess Andrenyi arrives, sweeping onto the platform in a whirl of glamour and beauty. Mrs. Hubbard is the last to arrive, and makes quite the impression with her larger-than-life personality.

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T.) N O O (C S I S P SYN

Mrs. Hubbard awakes to a man in her room and she alerts Monsieur Bouc of the intruder. Bouc shares this and the train stoppage situation with Poirot, who is concerned as to what may happen on the journey yet to come.

Cast of the Hartford Stage production.

Photo Credit: T. Charles Erickson.

Poirot indicates that something feels wrong and there is tension that makes him “frightened.”

Some foreshadowing of what’s to come?

The passengers begin to settle into the journey and Ratchett approaches Poirot in the dining car, asking him to look into the threatening letters Ratchett has received. Poirot refuses, even as Ratchett offers him a large sum of money to take on the case. Ratchett then propositions the Countess, for which he receives a slap across the face. The train begins to roll and heavy snow falls outside the windows.

The next morning, the passengers pass each other in the hall, sharing pleasantries. McQueen tries to deliver Ratchett’s breakfast, but there is no answer. With the assistance of Poirot and Bouc, they break in the door of his cabin to find him dead and covered in blood.

With the snow coming down, the passengers trapped, and a murderer on the loose, it is up to the intrepid Detective Poirot to solve the case of the murder on the Orient Express.

The passengers prepare for bed in their cabins, and Mrs. Hubbard and Ratchett have a conflict over her late-night singing. Later that evening, Michel calls for potential emergency assistance as the snow is getting very heavy and the train is heading into the mountains.

Mary and Arbuthnot meet and discuss Mary’s doubts about whatever they have planned, but Arbuthnot quells her worries with logic and romance. As McQueen interrupts their canoodling, the train stops and is caught in a snowdrift.

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Julie Halston as Helen Hubbard production. Ph in the Hartford oto Credit: T. Ch Stage arles Erickson.

Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express – PlayGuide

A S R E T C R A CH

Hercule Poirot

A retired Belgian police detective and Agatha Christie’s most well-known sleuth. He is fastidious, intelligent, and incredibly observant.

Quite the character, Poirot is famous for his ability to figure out even the toughest of cases.

Monsieur Bouc

Greta Ohlsson

Princess Dragomiroff’s companion and servant.

A Swedish missionary earning her way by assisting the Princess.

Countess Andrenyi

A young Hungarian aristocrat, lovely and charming, who disarms everyone she meets.

A younger Belgian man who is an old friend of Poirot’s and director of Wagon-Lit, the Orient Express’s train company. Bouc is good-natured, flirtatious, and accommodating to his guests and friends.

Helen Hubbard

Mary Denbenham

Colonel Arbuthnot

Hector McQueen

Samuel Ratchett

A young English beauty who is unassuming and charming. In love with Colonel Arbuthnot.

A nervous young American in the employ of Mr. Ratchett. Constantly on edge and stressed not only by his job, but something deeper.

Michel the Conductor

A Frenchman who works for the Orient Express, making sure the needs of all of the passengers are met.

A Midwestern widow with a personality as big as the Mississippi.

A Scottish military man, handsome, and straight forward. In love with Mary.

A brusque, off-putting American businessman.

A bully and sketchy character who thinks he can get anything he wants through money or intimidation.

Daisy Armstrong

The kidnapped and murdered daughter of the well-known Colonel Armstrong.

Princess Dragomiroff

A Russian pre-revolution royal with all the airs and trappings that entails. She is older, entitled, and does not suffer fools.

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Photo Credit: Leslie Cashen.

ABOUT

KEN

U L DWIG

Ken Ludwig has had six shows on Broadway and seven in London’s West End, and many of his works have become a standard part of the American repertoire. Lend Me a Tenor won two Tony Awards and was called “one of the classic comedies of the 20th century” by The Washington Post. Crazy For You was on Broadway for five years and won the Tony and Olivier Awards for Best Musical. In addition, he has won two Olivier Awards (England’s highest theater honor), the Helen Hayes Award, the Edgar Award for Best Mystery of the Year, and the Edwin Forrest Award for Contributions to the American Theater. His other plays include Moon Over Buffalo (starring Carol Burnett), Twentieth Century (starring Alec Baldwin), Be My Baby (starring Hal Holbrook), Baskerville, A Comedy of Tenors, Shakespeare in Hollywood, A Fox on the Fairway, Leading Ladies, and a stage version of Murder on the Orient Express written expressly at the request of the Agatha Christie Estate.

His newest play, Dear Jack, Dear Louise, which tells the story of his parents’ courtship during World War II, premiered at Arena Stage in fall 2019. His book “How To Teach Your Children Shakespeare”, published by Penguin Random House, won the Falstaff Award for Best Shakespeare Book of the Year, and his essays are published by the Yale Review. His work has been performed in over 30 countries in more than 20 languages, and his plays are produced throughout the United States every night of the year.

Ludwig’s Take on an Agatha Christie Classic Ludwig was asked by the Agatha Christie Estate to write a new adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express several years ago. Ludwig’s adaptation premiered at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey in March of 2017 and has enjoyed several other regional productions since. Ludwig is considered one of America’s greatest comedic playwrights, so that humor is infused into this version of the whodunit.

Ludwig has also whittled down Christie’s cast of characters from thirteen potential murderers to just eight to streamline the show for the stage.

Also absent is Dr. Constantine, the coroner who examines the body in the original novel. Ludwig chose to focus on the most dynamic and interesting of the characters, as well as those who would be most instrumental to unraveling the mystery.

In this adaptation, the use of several flashbacks and smaller scenes helps to clarify the story for the audience. The play opens with the scene of Daisy Armstrong’s kidnapping, which later proves important in solving the case. Also, the use of soliloquy from Poirot is a theatrical device that bookends the story, allowing the audience to understand a framework for the tale.

Bio excerpted from www.kenludwig.com.

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Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express – PlayGuide

S S E R P X E E, STAGE & SCREEN

E I R O NT ON THE PAG

Screenshot from the 2006 game.

Photo Credit: The Raven Remastered.

Cast of the 1974 film adaptation.

Photo Credit: The Guardian.

Cast of the 2017 film adaptation.

Photo Credit: 20th Century Studios.

Agatha Christie wrote and published Murder on the Orient Express in 1934 and it is one of her most well-known mysteries. Christie was inspired by the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh’s child, a case that had rocked the nation and had not yet been solved when she wrote the book. Christie also loved the Orient Express, and traveled on it herself in 1928. These two touch points were her starting point for this beloved mystery. As one of the most famous mystery novels of all-time, Murder on the Orient Express has enjoyed many different adaptations since its publication almost ninety years ago.

RADIO TELEVISION FILM

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Soviet state radio: 1966 BBC Radio 4: A five-part series, airing from December 1992 - January 1993 Audible: novel dramatization, 2017

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CBS: modernized made-for-television film, 2001 BBC/PBS: film-length episode of Agatha Christie’s Poirot series, 2010 Japanese television: mini-series, 2015

•

1974 film adaptation: starred Albert Finney, Sean Connery, Lauren Bacall, Anthony Perkins, John Gielgud, Michael York, Vanessa Redgrave, and many other notable talents. The film was a critical and commercial success.

2017 film adaptation: starred Kenneth Branagh, Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Penelope Cruz, Josh Gad, Sir Derek Jacobi, Daisy Ridley, Dame Judi Dench, Leslie Odom Jr., Willem Dafoe, Olivia Coleman, and several other notable actors. Branagh also directed the film. Several unusual choices were made with this adaptation, specifically with character backstories and identities.

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VIDEO GAMES www.MilwaukeeRep.com

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2006: A computer game is released with a playable character who has to take Poirot’s place in solving the murder as he is ill and recovering in his compartment.

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TIE S I R H C OF MYSTERY

A G A THA A M A ST E R

Agatha Christie (born Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller) was born on September 15th, 1890 in Torquay, Devon, England. Christie was homeschooled by her father, an American. Her mother wanted him to wait until Agatha was eight for her to learn to read, but the determined little girl taught herself by the age of five, signaling her lifelong love affair with the written word.

Christie’s father died when she was only eleven, which put her and her mother into financial uncertainty. They were able to overcome it, and Agatha continued her pursuits of music and writing into her early adulthood, skillfully playing the piano and writing short stories. When Agatha was twenty, she and her mother went to Cairo to spend “the season” where she found her social niche, attended parties, and found herself fielding marriage proposals. In 1912, Agatha met Archie Christie, an aviator, and the two had a whirlwind courtship that led to their marriage on Christmas Eve 1914 while Archie was on leave from the French front of World War I. 8

During the war, Agatha wrote her first detective story to win a bet with her sister and to relieve the boredom from her day job at the hospital dispensary. Her debut novel, in which Poirot makes his first appearance, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was accepted by The Bodley Head publishers in 1919 and published in 1920. They then contracted Agatha for five more novels. In the original manuscript, Christie had the story end in a courtroom. Her publisher, John Lane, suggested it end with a reveal in the library, which became a signature mystery device for years to come.

After the war, Agatha and Archie welcomed daughter Rosalind in 1919. Artistically, Agatha experimented with different types of mystery and thriller stories, creating her well-known characters Tommy & Tuppence and Miss Marple.

After several years of feeling she was being taken advantage of, Christie switched publishers to William Collins and Sons. Archie and Agatha traveled across what was then the British Empire to promote the Empire Exhibition of 1924.

Upon their return, Agatha’s mother died and

Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express – PlayGuide

she struggled with the burden of grief as well as strain on her marriage due to her husband having an affair.

In early December 1926, Agatha left Rosalind in the care of servants without any indication of where she was going. Her car was found abandoned the next morning. A nationwide search concluded with the finding of Christie eleven days later at a hotel in Harrogate, where she had no recollection of who she was or how she had gotten there. After Archie collected her from Harrogate, the two remained apart and divorced in 1928. As Christie recovered from her psychological stress, she struggled to write, but eventually found her way back to her novels, creating her first story in her pen name, Mary Westmacott, in 1928. In 1928 she also travelled on the Orient Express, a desire she had held for many years.

) and Max Mallowan (left Agatha Christie with husb Leonard Woolley at Ur, and lead archaeologist . eum to credit: British Mus southern Iraq, in 1931. Pho

On that journey, Christie traveled to an archeological site in Ur, where she met the Wooleys who ran the dig and would become her close friends. The following year she returned to the site, where she met her second husband Max Mallowan, a 25-year-old aspiring archaeologist.

The two were married in September of 1930. The two both loved adventure and this love carried into their life together, with a rotating yearly schedule of time at home in England and out in the field, where Agatha continued to write two to three novels a year.

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Once World War II began, Max was posted to Egypt, using his language skills to help the war effort. Agatha contributed by once again working in a hospital dispensary, but also through her writing of N or M. Agatha was prolific during this period, writing some of her most well-loved works like And Then There Were None. Rosalind also gave birth to Agatha’s first grandchild during this time, so Christie also took on the role of doting grandmother.

Once Max returned after the war, Agatha began to slow her prolific writing and enjoy her family and home. The 40s and 50s also saw Christie getting more involved in writing and producing for the stage, which consumed much of her time.

Her last public appearance was at the premiere of the film adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express. Christie died peacefully on January 12, 1976.

Agatha Christie’s legacy cannot be overstated.

She created some of the most memorable characters in fiction, was one of the most prolific novelists of all time, and to this day is the bestselling. She wrote sixty-six novels, fourteen short story collections, and the world’s longest running play, The Mousetrap. 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of her first novel. She was a woman who knew what readers wanted and lived her life by her own rules, adventuring and creating, and we all are the beneficiaries of her greatness.

Christie at her writing desk.

Photo credit: Christie Archive Trust.

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A S N O I T R I P INSDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS

FO R

MUR

Flyer asking for leads on kidnappers.

Photo Credit: Crime Museum.

The Lindbergh Kidnapping On March 1, 1932, around 9:00 pm, 20-month-old Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr. was kidnapped from his second floor nursery. He was the son of famous pilot Charles Lindbergh and his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. A ransom note asking for $50,000 was left in the nursery, along with mud and footprints. Household employees were interrogated, the Lindbergh’s friends tried to communicate with the kidnappers, and many avenues were exhausted for the baby’s safe return. In all, thirteen separate ransom notes were left with various parties over the course of several months. The search for the Lindbergh baby consumed the country, not only because of the fame of his father, but also of the horrific nature of the crime.

On May 12, the body of the baby was accidentally found several miles from the Lindbergh home.

After medical examination, it was determined that the child had been killed close to the date of his kidnapping. While the mystery of where the Lindbergh baby had gone had come to a tragic close, the perpetrators were still at large.

At the onset of the case, federal authorities were called to assist in an advisory capacity due to the high-profile identity of the victim, but once the child was found murdered, the FBI took on primary responsibility for apprehending the culprit. In June, an employee of Mrs. Lindbergh’s mother, who had been under investigation, committed suicide before she was to be questioned. She was later deemed uninvolved in the crime.

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Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr. Photo Credit: History.com.

Even President Roosevelt got involved in trying to aid the case at one point, directing all gold and gold certificates (with which much of the ransom was paid) to be returned to the Treasury Department. Serial numbers of the ransom money were distributed to New York and New Jersey area banking institutions. Thousands of people wrote letters and gave tips, many of which were false, to try to help the authorities capture the killer. Con men even duped wellmeaning people with promises to return the child to them so they could return him to his family. Thousands of leads were shared with the FBI, including the circulation of currency that was included in the ransom, but to no avail.

On September 18, 1934 a gold certificate for $10 arrived at Corn Exchange Bank and Trust, which

Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express – PlayGuide

The Real Orient Express

Hauptmann sketch and mugshot. Photo Credit: FBI.

was then tracked to a local gas station where a suspicious attendant had taken down the license plate of the man who paid with it. The authorities used that information to apprehend Bruno Richard Hauptmann, who had other ransom money in his home and fit the description given by a person connected with the case.

Hauptmann was put on trial on mostly circumstantial evidence and was convicted of first degree murder. Exhausting all appeals, Hauptmann was executed on April 3, 1936.

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In 1865, Belgian George Nagelmakers envisioned “a train that would span a continent, running on a continuous ribbon of metal for more than 1,500 miles,” as described by E.H. Cookridge in Orient Express: The Life and Times of the World’s Most Famous Train. After a number of complications, Nagelmakers’ vision was finally realized when Compagnie Internationale Wagon-Lit (sleeper cars) launched its route from Paris to Istanbul, dubbed by the newspapers “The Orient Express.”

Nagelmakers embraced the name and a legend was born.

On October 4th of 1883, journalists and passengers packed the luxury train, marveling at the beautiful finishing, “spacious” cabins, and high-class amenities. The journey from Paris to Istanbul lasted about eighty hours. The Orient Express became a symbol of the height of luxury in the world of travel and travel of the world.

A luxury cabin on the

Express.

Venice-Simplon Orient .w Photo Credit: Belmond

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A S N O I T R I P INS

S S E R P X E T N IE R O E H FO R M U R D E R O N T (CONT.) In its heyday, the train took on several monikers denoting its various lives and significance beyond its role as a mode of transport. Known as “The King of Trains” not only for its elevated luxury, but also for the royals and dignitaries it transported, the train had a more clandestine name as well. Also dubbed the “Spies’ Express,” secret agents loved traveling aboard because it made their jobs easier and their journeys more comfortable. The train even took on a larger significance in both World Wars as the site of the signing of the German surrender in WWI and later as the site of the French surrender to the Germans in WWII. When Nazi loss was imminent, Hitler ordered the destruction of the car so it would not “become a trophy of the Allies once more.”

the train moved secretively to their moments of history.” This intrigue, cast of interesting characters, opulent luxury, and breathtaking scenery is what drew Agatha Christie to journey on the Orient Express and inspired her to write one of her most famous murders in its cars.

Over the years, the pedigree of the Orient Express lost some of its luster as copycats and other routes took on the name and variations thereof.

Some even embraced the fictional world of the train, asking patrons to dress in costume or to reenact murder mystery role plays. Today, the Venice-Simplon Orient Express aims to restore some of the grandeur and luxury of the original for those wishing to take a journey back in time to the train’s decadent past.

Cookridge sums up the world of the original Orient Express thusly: “Kings and crooks, millionaires and refugees, big-game hunters and smugglers, prima donnas and courtesans traveled on it; tycoons and financiers clinched their deals across its sumptuous dining tables; diplomats, spies, and revolutionaries on board

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Poster with the summer 1889 schedule for the Orient Express.

Photo Credit: On This Day.

Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express – PlayGuide

O P I R OT

HCEHRRISTCIE’SUOLTHE ER FAMOUS SLEUTHS David Suchet as Poirot. Photo Credit: PBS. Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. Photo Credit: BBC. Jessica Raine as Tuppence and David Williams as Tommy.

Photo Credit: Laurence Cendrowicz. Maurice Denham as Parker Pyne. Photo Credit: Poirot and Friends.

Zoe Wanamaker as Ariadne Oliver.Photo Credit: PBS

AND

Hercule Poirot - The protagonist in Murder on the

Orient Express, Poirot appears in thiry-three novels and over fifty of Christie’s short stories. Poirot is diminutive in stature, but large in intelligence, savvy, and ability to solve crimes. Poirot’s most famous physical feature is his impressive mustache, which he preserves lovingly throughout his stories; his fastidiousness about his mustache also extends to his clothing and grooming.

He is admired by important people and police across the globe, and is a stickler for everything being “just so,” which is one reason he is so good at noticing the things that aren’t quite right that lead him to solving crimes.

Miss Jane Marple - Miss Marple appears to be

a little old lady who loves knitting, gardening, and gossip, which she absolutely is . . . and so much more!

Behind her unassuming grandmotherly ways is a highly intelligent woman who is an astute observer of human behavior. She has spent her whole life in the small village of St. Mary Mead, but she has learned much about people because “There is a great deal of wickedness in village life.” Christie first introduced amateur detective Marple in a short story in 1927, and much to Christie’s surprise, the character became a reader favorite after her first full-length novel, Murder at the Vicarage. Marple appears in twelve novels and twenty short stories.

Tommy & Tuppence - Spunky and charismatic

Tuppence runs into her old friend, the thoughtful and deliberate Tommy, in a train station right after WWI. The two of them start “Young Adventurers,

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Ltd.” who are “Willing to do anything. Go anywhere...

No unreasonable offer refused.” The characters are the only ones who aged along with their stories, appearing in four novels and a short story collection.

Harley Quin - Harley Quin is a mysterious character,

whose insight into people and circumstances seems otherworldly, and throughout his appearances, it is unclear whether he has a corporeal body or if he is just another hidden part of Sattherwaite’s personality.

Outwardly, Sattherwaite is “a dried up man” who shows an inordinate interest in the goings-on of others. Together, they solve mysteries, and perhaps are one of the oddest sleuthing teams in the genre.

Quin and Sattherwaite appear in the eponymous collection The Mysterious Mr. Quin.

Parker Pyne

- Mr. Parker Pyne is a retired civil servant who specializes in “curing unhappiness.” This leads him to unconventional means of investigation, using ruses and disguises with other members of his team. Often, his cases are resolved without anyone knowing it was he who resolved them. There is only one collection of his stories, but he appears in other collections as well.

Ariadne Oliver - A successful detective novelist

that many associate with Christie herself, Mrs. Oliver is a middle-aged woman who is feisty and often jumps to conclusions. She accompanies Poirot in six novels, aiding him in solving cases, and appears in one novel on her own.

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A HISTORY OF

E S E I R T S Y M

A collection of actors who have played Sherlock Holmes on film. Photo Credit: The Strand.

While stories of murder, tragedy, and unraveling of truth are as old as stories themselves, the mystery novel as we now know it is a fairly recent invention. Many credit the origins of mystery novels with the advent of organized police forces in countries around the world, which inspired writers to create tales where pieces of evidence were brought together in a solution to the crime.

Many credit Edgar Allan Poe with writing the first detective mysteries in the mid-1800s with the publication of his stories “Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841), “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt” (1842-43), and “The Purloined Letter” (1844). Poe’s protagonist, C. Auguste Dupin, has many characteristics that came to be hallmarks of fictional detectives: quirkiness, astute observational skills, high intelligence, a disconnection from “normal” society, and a penchant for focusing on seemingly meaningless minutiae. Even though these stories are short, they created a framework for detective stories for years to come. Other early genre writers included Wilkie Collins (The Moonstone, 1868), Charles Dickens (Bleak House, 1853), and Anna Catherine Green (The Leavenworth Case, 1978).

Mystery and detective fiction gained popularity in the ensuing years after Poe’s Dupin stories were published. Stories inspired by real events were the hallmark of the Pinkerton Detective Series, a popular set of novels published in the latter half of the 19th century. The Pinkerton stories had influence on the writing of other purveyors of the genre such as Sir 14

Arthur Conan Doyle and Mark Twain. Dime novels also became a popular form of mystery entertainment, especially among adolescents.

The second half of the 19th century and first half of the 20th featured an explosion of the mystery genre. In addition to the male authors in the genre, many female mystery writers came to the forefront, breaking barriers and using female sleuths and criminals who were derived from social movements of the times. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle invented perhaps the most famous detective of all time during this period, Sherlock Holmes, who has appeared in many iterations since his first appearance in print in 1887.

As the genre moved into the 1920s and the era of Agatha Christie, it began a golden age of the mystery novel. Writers were prolific and their works spanned both the traditional mystery and the newer private eye novel, with the time between the two World Wars being a high point for the world of mystery writing.

With the advent of the Cold War, mystery novels fell out of favor in the wake of the rise of the spy novel. As the 20th century progressed, the traditional and private eye mysteries have come back into the spotlight from the 1980s to today. The mystery genre has evolved and changed over the almost 200 years since Auguste Dupin first solved the Rue Morgue murders, but it endures because readers can’t seem to stop wanting to know whodunit.

Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express – PlayGuide

E MYST RIES AT MILWAUKEE REP

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VISITING

MILWAUKEE REP Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s Patty and Jay Baker Theater Complex is located in the Associated Bank River Center downtown at the corner of Wells and Water Streets.

The building was formerly the home of the Electric Railway and Light Company.

VISITING THE REP

TheRepertory Ticket Office is visiblePatty on the leftJay upon entering theComplex Wells Street doors. The Quadracci Milwaukee Theater’s and Baker Theater is located in the Milwaukee Powerhouse is located Mezzanine andStreets. can be accessed via escalator or elevator.

Center downtown at the corneron ofthe Wells and Water The building was formerly the home of the Electric Railway and Light Company.

The Ticket Office is visible on the left upon entering the Wells Street doors. The Quadracci Powerhouse is located on the first level.

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