‘And Then There Were None’ at Walnut Street Theatre

Walnut Street is usually successful at reviving old plays and making them work, but this time, alas, they were less effective. When slapping a hysterical woman gets the biggest laugh of the evening, something has gone seriously awry.

The play is classic Christie. Ten people are trapped on an island in a storm; one by one, they die until. . . . It’s a story that’s been told many times, which is both part of its charm and its downfall. The most successful reincarnations find a way to add new life to old material. This production, at least the first act, seemed to take itself a bit too seriously. Fortunately, it found its center in the second act as the characters grew more comfortable in their roles and the energy picked up.

The drama, with its stilted language and caricatures for characters, is ripe for satire. Dame Agatha, who died in 1976, adapted the work herself in 1943 with an ending that differs from the book to make the work more acceptable to a general audience; hers is the version used here. The title has also been altered over time, because both the original British title (Ten Little Niggers) and its American counterpart (Ten Little Indians) are offensive to modern sensibilities.

The satiric road not taken

As the characters arrived on the island, each with a peculiar version of a British accent, there was plenty of potential for fun. These were absurd people, drawn together by unbelievable invitations, who should have offered us suspense, suspicion, and humor, as well as questions about justice and the legal system. And yet as the play lumbered along, killing off one character after the other, the audience was so hungry for a laugh here and there that they would respond to the slightest provocation, hence laughing at the slap.

Why do we laugh at what we know is not funny? Humor is transgressive, that’s true. But how did the hysterical woman and the slap to get her to shape up and stop crying get to be a thing? And why did we ever think it was funny? Perhaps it's time for both this cliché and the play itself to be relegated to history.