Adaptation

The Ending of AND THEN THERE WERE NONE

As we look at Christie's adaptation of the novel into a play, the most notable adjustment would be the new ending to the mystery. The novel had been written in 1938, published in 1939, and reflects a Britain that had not yet entered World War II, but was feeling the effects of an approaching disaster. The book is a clever logic puzzle and required two epilogues to reveal the murderer and the murderer's methods. The novel's ending is significantly darker than the play's ending and leaves us with larger questions about justice, guilt, and who has the right to decide who deserves to die.

Within a year of the novel being published producers and dramatists began approaching Christie's agent, Cork, to see if Christie would be amenable to the novel being adapted for the stage. Christie had agreed to let another writer adapt The Murder of Roger Ackroyd in 1928, which was hugely frustrating for her and resulted in a script she did not enjoy (Green 74-7). After that experience, Christie preferred to adapt her novels for the stage herself. In this case, she told Cork, "... if anyone is going to dramatise it, I'll have a shot at it myself first!" (Green 158)

She commented in her autobiography:

"It suddenly occurred to me that if I didn't like the way other people has adapted my books, I should have a shot at adapting them myself. It seemed to me that the adaptations of my books to the stage failed because they stuck far too closely to the original book. A detective story is particularly unlike a play, and is so far more difficult to adapt than an ordinary book. It has such an intricate plot and usually so many characters and false clues that the thing is bound to become confusing and overladen. What was wanted was simplification." (471)

Christie also claimed that the process of adapting And Then There Were None helped her with the decision to fully embrace her identity as a playwright.

"It was then that I decided in the future that no one else was going to adapt my books except myself; I would choose what books should be adapted, and only those books that were suitable for adapting." (472)

Unfortunately, because of the war and loss of records, there are no remaining working copies of her script. We are left only with the finalized draft. But her letters to her husband Max at the time do remain and give a sense of the process and pressures that she underwent. Although evidence suggests that she adapted the novel quite quickly, initially producers backed out because of the infeasibility of the original novel's ending onstage (Green 161). Talks resumed in 1942, this time with producer Bertie Meyer, and with the support of a combination of actors and directors, he approached Christie about changing the end of the play.

The world had changed since the publishing of the novel. The UK was embroiled in combat and the threat of death seemed much closer, especially with the blitz bombing attacks the country was suffering. Producers worried that the original ending was too grim for audiences at the time. Accordingly, their suggestions focused on bringing a bit of hope and redemption to the end of the play. The poem that serves as a guide for the murders does have an alternate ending: 'He got married and then there were none." If Christie used this version of the poem, it necessitated a significant change to the original ending. However, Christie was galvanized by an enthusiastic meeting with the theatrical team and told Max: "I have always contemplated [that ending] as a possibility if I can do it my own way, which is agreed..." (Green 164).

Christie was also influenced by her own need for financial security. Both American and British tax authorities sought additional payments from Christie in the 1940s and required multiple hearings and negotiations. These were complicated by documents being destroyed or lost due to bombings during the war. Her agent Cork wrote: "The situation is pretty desperate.... It is hard to believe that Christie will have to find money for Income Tax on money she has not received." (Morgan 231) In 1941, he continued to pressure Christie's publisher for payments: "She is being pressed remorselessly by the tax authorities here and the Bank to pay her English taxation, which for the year will be anything up to four times the total income she will receive...." (Morgan 232) Undoubtedly Christie also remembered her father's financial failures in his later years; she began to build what she called "a nest egg" and assigning copyrights to her husband and daughter in an effort to create financial security for her family (Morgan 230). A success on the West End would go a long way in easing her worries.

Although the play's new ending suited the times and was quite successful in both the US and the UK, her grandson Mathew Prichard recognized that there was a desire on the part of contemporary artists and producers to return to the original 1939 novel ending. He commissioned a faithful adaptation of the original ending, which is now available for theatres to choose for production. Triad Stage has chosen to produce the original 1939 novel ending with the recognition that it continues a conversation we having been having with our audiences about guilt, justice, and secrets that we have explored in The Passion of Teresa Rae King, The Price, and Actions and Objectives.

General Macarthur to General Mackenzie

Readers of the novel will notice that the elderly general's name has shifted. Although originally called Macarthur in the novel, as the play was adapted post WWII for film, the name shifted, presumably because of the similarity to the name of the famous American, General Douglas MacArthur.