The lead and the director of a stage version of Agatha Christie’s classic carriage-bound whodunnit on keeping the Auckland Theatre Company’s production on the rails.
For Cameron Rhodes it’s a role to dye for. He’s requiring some transformation – playing Hercule Poirot, “the greatest detective in the world” in the Auckland Theatre Company’s lavish production of Agatha Christie’s masterpiece Murder on the Orient Express.
The actor’s curly white hair will be tamed, trimmed and dyed black, as will his rather faint moustache. Meeting him at the end of the first week of intensive rehearsals at the ATC premises, it’s immediately apparent Rhodes’ mo is no match for the high bar set by the Belgian detective’s “magnificent, luxuriant asset”, which even has its own page on the official Christie website.
However, Rhodes is confident his impending transformation into Poirot will strike awe into the hearts of all who see him.
“The moustache will be a big feature,” he says. “It will be a combination of my own and some sort of variation. I have looked at lots of Poirots and every moustache is different. His appearance is very important. He is incredibly neat and manicured. I have a wonderful tailored costume, with patent leather shoes for his dainty feet.
“David Suchet, the very famous Poirot, made a list of 93 things about him he found from Christie’s books, like ‘a speck of dust on his clothes was as painful as a bullet wound’. Suchet talks about him having a mincing walk and practising with a 10-cent coin between his buttocks. I’m not sure how far I’ll go with that.”
Murder on the Orient Express, adapted with biting wit by American playwright Ken Ludwig, places Poirot and his formidable “little grey cells” aboard the luxury train running from Istanbul to Calais in 1934. It’s a cosy crime set-up, with a contained array of murky passengers, including fading European aristocrats and hyper-wealthy Americans, travelling with their secretaries and servants. One of them is about to die.
And so the narrative moves briskly to a murder in the middle of the night in the snowed-in train, presenting Poirot with one of his most ethically troubling cases. To simplify logistics, the original cast of 12 potential suspects has been conflated to eight.
Even though the book was published nearly 100 years ago, its appeal has lasted throughout the decades. According to the ATC box office, the three-week season is already the fastest-selling in the company’s history. A different production of the Ludwig play ran for six weeks early last year at Christchurch’s Court Theatre.
The 10th of Christie’s 38 Poirot novels, Orient Express has been made into two star-studded features in 1974 and 2017, with Poirot played by Albert Finney and Kenneth Branagh respectively. The 1974 cast included Lauren Bacall, Jacqueline Bisset, Sean Connery, John Gielgud, Vanessa Redgrave and Ingrid Bergman, who won a best supporting actress Oscar. Branagh also directed the 2017 film with a cast including Judi Dench, Johnny Depp and Michelle Pfeiffer, and which was untroubled by any awards. Suchet’s long tenure as Poirot included a television movie.
Many Christie books have been adapted for film and TV over the years; plays to a lesser degree. Her blockbuster stage drama The Mousetrap, which has run in London since 1952, is blocked by her estate from all other forms of production until its closure.
That’s not an issue for Orient Express. This production was originally commissioned by the Agatha Christie Foundation, which approached Ludwig, known for his Tony Award-winning 1980s Broadway comedy Lend Me a Tenor and a series of Sherlock Holmes plays. It debuted in the McCarter Theatre in Princeton in 2017, and a new production is currently touring the UK and Ireland, featuring Michael Maloney as Poirot.
“When the foundation said they wanted to commission Ken Ludwig to write an adaptation of one of her books, he asked if they were sure they had the right guy,” says Shane Bosher, who is directing the play for the ATC. “He came back with Murder on the Orient Express because he loved its almost unstageable sense of adventure. That is certainly one of the terrific challenges that we’ve embraced among the creative team. I mean, how do you put a train on stage?”
A good question. The production has all the bells and whistles. The train, with its luxe decor and rhythmic ambience, is a character in its own right.
Designer John Verryt’s ingenious set incorporates long sliding panels moving on and off the stage, depicting three cabins in three separate carriages, supplemented by audio-visual footage of the Orient Express steaming across the countryside.
Before boarding, Poirot addresses the audience, introducing the drama about to unfold: “The greatest case of my career – but who am I to say? Modesty forbids it,” says Rhodes, reading from the script with a respectable Poirot-ish accent.
He’s keenly aware that playing Poirot can present a fine line between comedy and drama. “You don’t want to turn it into Peter Sellers, you know, Carry On Down the Train,” he says. “It could be very easy to turn it into a farce, like Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther. Sellers’ character was based on Poirot but then so was Daniel Craig in the Knives Out films. We don’t want to teeter into broad comedy. So that’s the balancing act and Shane will keep us in line.”
With a cast featuring Rima Te Wiata as the much-married, strident American Helen Hubbard and Jennifer Ludlam as the imperious exiled Russian Princess Dragomiroff, plus Rhodes himself, Bosher has strong personalities to wrangle. The cast also includes Sophie Henderson, Bronwyn Ensor, Mayen Mehta, Mirabai Pease, Ryan O’Kane, Jordan Selwyn and Edwin Wright.
We are working not only with some of New Zealand’s finest actors but some of New Zealand’s naughtiest actors.
“Well, that’s true,” laughs Rhodes. “We’re having a lot of fun in rehearsal, and you want to have that sense of fun. The stage manager has a counter bell to keep us in line and if we go off topic or talk too much, it’s ding!”
“One of the assets of the adaptation is that it celebrates the archetypes written into the script, which creates a delicious sense of comedy,” adds Bosher. “That’s why the cast is populated by people like Rima and Jennifer – they are actors who understand that sensibility, it’s in their bones.
“Rima’s character as Helen Hubbard has been significantly reframed from the original and is completely different from the Lauren Bacall or Michelle Pfeiffer characters in the films. She is presenting as a really brash American actress from Minnesota, of all places, with multiple husbands. You get the feeling she might have annoyed them to death.
“Jen Ludlam as the princess pushed out by the Bolsheviks is described as a battleship, a part she absolutely embraces. She has wonderfully bombastic entrances when she comes in and takes up space. And we are going to be very much celebrating Cameron’s version of Hercule Poirot, which I love.”
Rhodes, who comes to Orient Express after playing a Roman noble in the Starz TV series Spartacus: House of Ashur, is revelling in his return to the stage, on which he has delivered more than 100 roles in Australia and New Zealand over nearly three decades. Although he has also had numerous roles in film and TV, he loves the direct connection of theatre.
“With a play, you are out there every day with the same people and you become like a family. It really is a fun job. The last time I was on stage was as Gloucester in Michael Hurst’s King Lear [for the ATC in 2023], not a lot of comedy in that, but full on. You do feel very alive in front of an audience.
“I’ve gone to Los Angeles recently and done some workshops and met people who have never done a play. On stage, you’ve got to have diction so the audience can hear you. You have to fill the theatre with your energy,” he says, adding, “The saying goes, film makes you famous; TV makes you rich; theatre makes you good.”
Directing a play like Murder on the Orient Express is a departure for Bosher, who usually prefers what he calls “gritty and gruelling drama”.
“When I talked to Jonathan Bielski [ATC’s CEO-artistic director] about coming back to do something, I said I wanted to do a comedy, something I wouldn’t normally be asked to do. He brought me this and I went, ‘Well, I wouldn’t ask me to do that!’ and I have really embraced the challenge.
“The entire production is celebrating the idea of entertainment, which can be a dirty word in the theatre sector. But I think with the environment around us and the world being as challenging as it is, we have an absolute desire for escapism and entertainment at the moment,” says Bosher.
“This is true,” says Rhodes. “Why do a play like this? There’s a lot going on in the world that’s frankly horrible, there always is but we seem to be in a very strange time. Well, it’s important to take time out, come together and be entertained. A friend in England said the theatre there is doing about 95% full, people are flocking back and this is booking really well, too.
“It’s going to take you away for two hours but it’s not meaningless, it has human elements and reflects us as we are. We could be doing a very heavy tragedy but, in a way, this is perhaps doing a greater service, to us as well.”
Murder on the Orient Express, ASB Waterfront Theatre, Auckland, April 22-May 10.
