The main reason that the character of Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot has remained so interesting to audiences decades after Agatha Christie first wrote about him in 1920 was due to both his super powers of detection and the enigmatic quality of his person, according to David Sinaiko who will once again play him at Alley Theatre.
In The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, adapted by playwright/director Mark Shanahan from her book written in 1926, we return to one of Christie’s favorite settings: the isolated country manor. It begins with a dinner that Poirot is not present for but after the sudden death of the title character — following the suspicious deaths of two other people — he is brought into the case, although he has retired.
The Poirot character has evolved by this point later in his life, says Sinaiko, who played him once before on the Alley stage in Murder On The Orient Express in 2019. “He allows himself to be emotional in ways in this play that he wasn’t in Orient Express. In very interesting ways.”
“It’s really an iconic character and those are always fabulous characters to play especially a character like Poirot; there are many ways to interpret him,” Sinaiko says. “There’s a quality to him that’s very special. He’s almost got super powers in a certain way. I think it’s one of the reasons that he had such a long life in literature and for Christie — even to the point where Christie, I think, wanted to be done with him and she couldn’t quit him.
“He is multi-faceted. He’s an enigma. He’s always a gift to me. As an actor you can do so much with him. There’s a challenge to make him interesting and enigmatic and also, may be obvious, hey I get to solve the mystery every night.”
Sinaiko gives high marks to Shanahan who both adapted the book and is directing this production. “He has done a brilliant job of it and he really wrote a beautiful version of Poirot.”
He said he and Shanahan have discussed that “if Poirot and really the story itself is only a procedural, if it’s just CSI England 1926 countryside, he is perfect and it’s not that interesting. Mark is very clear there’s something very different, almost extra terrestrial, superhuman a little bit about this person called Poirot who appears where he needs to appears in a place that needs a very, very tricky knot to be untangled and is able deftly in a kind of spectral way to untangle that knot.”
In Christie’s books, Poirot is often accompanied by Captain Hastings providing a sounding board much like the association between Dr. John Watson and Sherlock Holmes. But unlike Holmes, Poirot is often underestimated by others particularly when they first meet him. They frequently identify him as French when he is Belgian and dismiss him in light of his small stature.
“He’s pretty diminutive in size. They’re always calling him little and egg headed and because he’s a foreigner in England which was especially at the time Christie was writing there were sectors that were quite xenophobic and she puts him into those places,” Sinaiko says. “He’s very othered and he uses that. He lets people underestimate him. It’s one of the great things to be able to play. He sort of let’s people beat up on him so they don’t see him coming.”
Poirot has also been compared to the TV character Columbo who was also underestimated, but while Columbo presented as slovenly with his old rumpled raincoat, Poirot is always impeccably groomed, Sinaiko points out.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd has been acknowledged by many as one of her best books. “It’s one of her most famous books in that she chooses a very interesting narrator for the story. It’s not told completely in the third person,” Sinaiko says.
“In Orient Express he’s confined to this train. In Ackroyd it’s the classic English countryside, big strange manor house where there are a lot of secrets. So there’s that part of this genre that Christie really helped to invent. She was critical in inventing a genre that has become like comfort food to us.”
Performances are scheduled for July 26 through August 27 at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays and Sundays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays at Alley Theatre, 615 Texas. For more information, call 713-220-5700 or visit alleytheatre.org. $35-$81.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
