The Mysterious Affair at Styles: Ten Years On

Playmakers, Inc.
Covington, LA (2022)

St. Valentine’s Day, 2012. My adaptation of Agatha Christie’s first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles, premiered at the Alcazar Hotel in Cleveland Heights. This would play become my first published script, and a significant moment in my life as a writer.

When it was announced that Great Lakes Theater would produce The Mousetrap at the Hanna Theatre in spring 2012, I proposed adapting one of Christie’s two (at that time) public domain works for the annual touring show. Writing this particular piece was an education for me in many ways.

For example, I had never read anything by Christie. I knew little about the First World War. I had never adapted a novel before, never written a mystery before, and I had to figure out how to present twelve characters with an allotted cast of five.

Chattanooga Theatre Centre
Chattanooga, TN (2018)

This was my sixth outreach tour as an actor, and my second as playwright. Our five person ensemble included actors I had worked with in previous tours, including Michael Gatto, Anne McEvoy and Emily Pucell Czarnota.

Two years earlier, Emily was in my play On the Dark Side of Twilight, a three-hander, with me and Dusten Welch. Our working dynamic was so familiar in that tour, that when we brought in an actor who was new to all of us for this production, we both kept calling him Dusten. That was James Rankin.

The good folks at Playscripts, Inc. chose to publish it the same year, and since that time there have been (to date) two dozen productions. Not an overwhelming number, but there are a few limitations to this particular adaptation which narrow the kind of organizations which might choose to present the show. It is brief, for one thing, no intermission.

Alaska Pacific Univ.
Anchorage, AK (2017)

Also, The Mysterious Affair at Styles is in the public domain in the United States only. There is a larger media company which manages the written work of Agatha Christie, and they carefully guard her copyrighted works. Copyright laws vary from nation to nation, and in the British Commonwealth, her work remains so.

"Loaded with many comedic moments."

- Ryan Jordan, University Echo, Chattanooga

So, no British productions. We learned this early on when an “am-dram” (as they say) licensed the work, announced auditions online, and almost immediately stated they were instead producing And Then There Were None.

Poughkeepsie Day School
Poughkeepsie, NY (2020)

Yet, within the fifty states (including Alaska) the piece is enjoying a healthy life at middle schools and high schools, as well as some fine community theater productions, most recently at a theater in the New Orleans region, and soon a charter school in D.C. It was written to have a flexible cast size (5 - 12 players, or more) and one basic drawing room set, making it a great choice for schools and smaller theaters.

To me, the most important element of the original production was when we found James to play Captain Hastings. James was only 22 at the time, and I had seen him in a production of Waiting For Lefty at Ensemble Theatre. In my script, Hasting rarely leaves the playing area, for as in the novel he is the narrator, letting the audience into the story.

"A thrill for any detective afficionado."

- Marjorie Preston, Sun Press, Cleveland

James Alexander Rankin
Great Lakes Theater
Cleveland, OH (2012)

Some twenty years my junior, he played the naive and at times foolish sidekick and sounding board to my Poirot with open-faced humor, and like Poirot and Hastings we swiftly became great friends. It was a particular delight to write my Much Ado About Nothing prequel Double Heart (The Courtship of Beatrice and Benedick) with Emily and James in mind as the young lovers. 

Next up, he is featured in the long-awaited video production of my solo performance I Hate This (a play without the baby), produced by Playhouse Square. The release of this production has been postponed as we work out the logistics of how best to use the piece as an educational product for medical professionals, and also as an aid to those who have experienced neonatal demise.

The Styles Affair? No, I'll never forget the Styles Affair.

“The Mysterious Affair at Styles” adapted by David Hansen from the novel by Agatha Christie is available from Playscripts, Inc.