At the end of the year, Shanghai's performing arts market was extremely lively, and each troupe launched its own year-end drama. The drama "Murder on the Orient Express" produced by Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center and Shanghai Mousetrap Drama Studio is one of the best works.
Murder on the Orient Express is one of the most iconic works of Agatha Christie, the queen of the world's detective novels. Once this work was published, it established Agatha Christie as a best-selling author. The original book tells the story of a Simpron Orient Express train in the early 1930s that was blocked by a blizzard in Yugoslavia and may have been delayed for several days. To make matters worse, on the Calais carriage of the train, a wealthy American businessman was found lying in his box and stabbed with twelve knives. In order to avoid gossip affecting the reputation of the train company, Mr. Booker, a Belgian who is the director of the train company, is determined to entrust detective Poirot to find out the truth before the arrival of the local police.
Drama poster
The final ending of "Murder on the Orient Express" reflects Agatha's thinking between fairness and justice, reason and law, and it is also the most entangled detective in the Poirot detective series in addition to "Curtain". Murder on the Orient Express was created in 1934. In that era, the economic crisis quickly spread from the United States to other industrialized countries as the Great Collapse of the Stock Market led to the Great Depression that lasted for four years. For millions of people, life becomes a struggle to eat, wear, and live. In order to safeguard their own interests, countries have strengthened trade protection measures and means, further aggravated the deterioration of the world economic situation, and enabled Germany, Italy, and Japan to embark on the road of foreign aggression and expansion and fascism in order to get rid of the Great Depression. This was an important source of the outbreak of the Second World War. What is more interesting is that the Americans, Italians, and British who appear in the original book are exactly the opposite sides in the second world war, but in the work, Agatha uses the platform of the train to achieve an "international alliance" and conducts a showdown between good and evil for common purposes. The law is merciless, but outside the law is nothing more than human feelings. The law is rational, human nature is emotional, and at the end of "Murder on the Orient Express", we can see that the two have reached a surprising fusion, which has also aroused the audience's deep thinking.
Ken Ludwig, screenwriter of murder on the Orient Express, is an internationally acclaimed playwright whose work has caused numerous sensations on Broadway, London and around the world. "Lend Me a Tenor" has won two Tony Awards, and the musical "Crazy for You" has won the Tony Award for Best Musical. Ludwig was twice the Laurence Olivier Awards and the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America.
Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center and Shanghai Mousetrap Drama Studio continue the sophisticated principle of producing suspense stage plays for many years, with director Lin Yi personally serving as the Chinese screenwriter, closely focusing on the core ideas of the original novel of Agatha, deleting and modifying the original script, and striving to present a classic work that meets the tastes of Chinese audiences. But this landmark work in the history of the world's detective fiction is somewhat unfortunate. Because even if he is not a fan of detective novels, he has been spoiled early because of the popularity of the story, director Lin Yi hopes that the audience who enters the theater "knows it and knows why it is so" and find the fun and satisfaction in it.
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For me, the biggest surprises about appreciating this play are these points: First, a strong cast. In her autobiography, Agatha Christie mentioned that in her own script, poirot, the protagonist, did not appear except for "Black Coffee", because she was afraid that the audience would focus on the detective's problem on the stage and ignore the artistic ideas she intended to convey through the play itself. But Murder on the Orient Express may be a special case. Due to the particularity of the identity of the murderer in the work, the number of passengers who boarded the Orient Express and was involved in the incident was large, laying a solid fan base for the stars to gather on the drama stage.
So, on the stage, you see seven national first-class actors such as Lu Liang and Song Yining of Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center joining the play, and even the famous voice actor Zhang Xin played the role image of his own voice in the new version of the movie "Murder on the Orient Express" in 2017. Three generations of actors from the old, middle and young generations played on the same stage, and the stars gathered together, which was a feast for the eyes. The second is the actor's understanding of role play. On the stage, when the Italians living in the United States, played by teacher Wang Xiaobing, greeted a group of strange passengers, the unique charm of Italians came alive. When the great detective Poirot, played by Teacher Lu Liang, appeared in the running train, the handling of the discord between the surrounding small objects, the correction of his name when greeting, suddenly presented the image of the arrogant Belgian detective with a small gray brain cell that we are familiar with in the original work. When the image of the arrogant noblewoman played by Mrs. Herbert played by Teacher Song Yining is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, she will be admired for the reversal of the character image of the ending. The ability of a good performer to grasp and understand the role is not something that can be practiced overnight, and the skill is evident. The third is the troupe's main creator's excellence in details. When the scene of many passengers boarding the Orient Express in the first act of the whole play jumps into your eyes, you will be amazed by the gorgeous design of the stage, which can present the train exit scene absolutely needs to be carefully polished, and at the same time, as small as the 1214 mark on the collar of the conductor (the premiere date of the play is December 14), the Original English version of "The Massacre on the Nile" read by Poirot on the train, the narrow aisle design of the train carriage, and the creation of the snow scene are all commendable places.
In fact, as early as the 1940s, the American playwright Ben Hurt intended to adapt "Murder on the Orient Express" into a stage play, and consulted Agatha Christie for this. Agatha said she was interested in bringing the play to the stage, but hoped it would be her own doing the adaptation. She said the stage play should begin with a review of the kidnappings in New York — exactly the same approach that was followed in the later 1974 British film version. Unfortunately, Agatha did not put her idea into practice in the end.
This version of "Murder on the Orient Express" brought by Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center and Shanghai Mousetrap Drama Studio can be said to have fulfilled Agatha's dream to some extent, and it is also a love letter from the main creative team to Agatha herself in the name of Agatha's loyal fans. Although the whole drama still needs to be carefully polished in small details such as the scheduling of the opening group drama and the rhythm control of some paragraphs such as the second half interrogation, it is undoubtedly a masterpiece full of sincerity and absolutely cannot be missed, and it is worth every drama fan to enter the theater and enjoy such a wonderful visual feast.