Said an intrepid young traveller named Irma
On the train from Thailand to Burma
"I simply don't care
To travel by air
I prefer to stay on terra firma"

Said an intrepid young traveller named Irma
On the train from Thailand to Burma
"I simply don't care
To travel by air
I prefer to stay on terra firma"

Said an intrepid young poster Amemeba
In a thread which began in diaspora
"I simply don't care
To vote on what's fair
A word is a brick and so there!"

Peggy and her sister Liz pestered me into trying out for a part in our local community thater's presentation of The Mousetrap. I was stunned to find that they offered me the part of Paravicini, and I've been having loads of fun with the part.

In the middle of I, ii Paravicini sits down next to this woman, leers at her, and says, "Now there was a young lady . . . " and the woman huffs and rushes off-stage. I said, "What is going on here?"

The director told us that this was the first line to a limerick, so at rehearsal last night I entered and sat down and said, "There was a young man from Nantucket." Even the director, who is a strict constructionist of plays, loved it. So I get to throw in a new limerick start every night. Even more fun is I get to change accents every time I appear on stage (my idea) to emphasize the fact that Paravicini is such a complete fake even he doesn't know who he is.

Paravicini is such a complete fake even he doesn't know who he is.

Brilliant interpretation, TEd Rem.

But is this character, both literally and figuratively cast adrift in Monkswell Manor, really "a fake"?

Frankly, I don;t know what to make of him other than to play him for all the comic relief he seems to be worth. I have neither seen nor read The Mousetrap before I got this part, and I was absolutely appalled at how poorly plotted it is.

Example: Mollie is in her twenties, yet she was a teacher at the time the ill-fated children were in school some years before. I am not real certain of the timeline, but she does appear too young to have had a teaching role at the school. There are several other inconsistencies, one of which involves Paravicini.

At the end of the play Giles states point-blank that the police are going to find smuggled goods in the boot of his car, yet there is absolutely nothing in the body of the play to even hint at that.

Very strange.

Well, off to rehearsal.

TEd

re "smuggled goods in the boot of his car, yet there is absolutely nothing in the body of the play to even hint at that"

Sounds like "the body of the play" is in the boot.

re "I was absolutely appalled at how poorly plotted it is."

As you probably know, The MouseTrap is "the world's longest running play of any kind", now in its 51st year at the Albemarle of London.

Audiences seem to like "strange", TEd Rem.