Chances are you already know what the world’s longest-running play is. Yes, Agatha Christie’s murder-mystery The Mousetrap . The classic play will be staged this weekend by Crea-Shakthi, in collaboration with The Madras Players. The play stars P.C. Ramakrishna, Karthik T.M., Mahitha Suresh, Balaji K. Moorthy, Indira Hande, Prasanna Venkatesh, Zarin Shihab and Rahul Sridhar. Director Abhinav Suresh — who has directed plays such as Mahesh Dattani’s Final Solutions , Poile Sengupta’s Mangalam , Gautam Raja’s String of Women Monologues and, most recently, Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope — talks about how they managed to bring it together.
Why did you choose to do this play?
This is a collaboration with the oldest English theatre company in India, and Crea-Shakthi wanted to explore a play that could work well as an ensemble.
Usually, The Madras Players invites us to provide it a handful of play options for the committee to choose from. This year, The Mousetrap got selected.
Apart from being Chennai’s first-ever public staging of the play, it carries the charm and undisputed reputation of being the world’s longest-running play. The story, the characters, the twist in the end unlike the regular whodunits, and endless possibilities for set design were certainly factors that tilted us towards this classic.
It’s the longest-running play in the world and has been performed several times — how have you brought in your style?
Each director is different and has a vision of his/her own. I am sure no two performances of this play will be entirely comparable.
In my version, you will see emphasis on in-depth characterisation, original music and detailed set work. The actors have each gone through the unabbreviated process of discussing and understanding their roles, before getting into the skin of it, over the last two months. In my opinion, most of the online versions that I have watched have not explored the characters adequately, something that is vital to an actor-verbose play such as this.
As far as music is concerned, Hamsini Balasubramaniam is my go-to person, as she specialises in murder-mystery music. A keen student of both theatre and music, she has cut no corners to ensure that all the tracks are composed in line with the plot.
On the set, Victor Paulraj is a veteran, and together, we have done a lot of research and had plenty of discussions on how to make it as period-specific and real as possible. We decided not to compromise on the visual appeal or the opulence.
Have you tweaked it at all?
The original play, as produced by Sir Peter Saunders, which still runs in London, is over two hours long with an intermission. We have retained the original script, and have not edited for length or made any changes or twists in the end.
Do you feel like it’s an ambitious production?
Not by any stretch of imagination. The actors the city has groomed are comparable to, and even exceed the standards of, those in foreign countries (if that is the benchmark). Besides the technology that theatres in other countries boast of, we have a vastly superior, cultivated and progressive sense of stage craft. We adapt easily to any milieu. In fact, I would think it would be ambitious for foreign countries to try and do Indian plays, not the other way around.
What was the biggest challenge in bringing it together?
Finding the right cast for this timeless ensemble. The script demands a perfect balance of old, middle-aged and young actors. It was pertinent that we nailed the casting before worrying about the play itself. Of course, we took our time over it, and now have a fabulous cast that more than justifies the script.
The Mousetrap will be staged at The Music Academy, TTK Road, on Friday, June 17 at 7.15 p.m. Tickets priced at Rs. 500, Rs. 300 and Rs. 200 are available on bookmyshow.com Call 93819 11977 for details. The play is suitable for audiences aged 12 and above.
