On the Nile In Elm Grove Without Poirot

By the time the at she was working on Murder on the Nile, Agatha Christie was said to have been getting sick of her protagonist. When a writer works really closely with a single character for a long time, it's not altogether unlike getting sick of ANY work associate. One can imagine what it might have been like for Christie dealing with the Belgian detective. Suffice it to say famous mystery writer and famous fiction Belgian detective were likely getting on each other's nerves. Just as Doyle and Holmes had been rumored to have tired of each other, so had Poirot and Christie.

So when she set about writing the stage adaptation of her novel Death on the Nile, she eliminated Poirot altogether. And so the story remained without the central character. Doubtlessly felt kind of empty without Poirot for many of Christie's fans, but there you had it. What was originally staged under the name Hidden Horizon eventually mutated into Murder on the Nile, which is being produced by the Sunset Playhouse later on this month. 

I haven't seen Murder on the Nile. Half a decade ago, the Off the Wall Theatre staged a mutated adaptation of Murder on the Nile that placed Poirot right back into the story. Sunset Playhouse's staging is staying true to the original script in keeping Poirot out of the story and performing it as Christie had originally intended--absent Poirot and all. 

The Sunset Playhouse production that I'm going to inevitably be comparing this one against ink y head . . . was actually really-well executed. The heat of the tiny, little space across the street from the  Rep's theatre complex was really good at rendering the heat of a pleasure cruise along the Nile. And Liz Mistele had some beautiful moments of silence onstage that helped to transform the space into something altogether more exotic. Difficult to tell how to render that in a space as large as the Sunset Playhouse's main stage. 

The Sunset Playhouse's Murder on the Nile  runs January 23rd - February 9th at the space on 800 Elm Grove Road. For ticker reservations, call 262-782-4430 or visit www.sunsetplayhouse.com