Agatha Christie's iconic sleuth reborn for Pittsburgh Public Theater play
Imagine Hercule Poirot poking around Pittsburgh.
In Pittsburgh Public Theater’s new production, he does just that. The legendary literary sleuth Poirot is reincarnated to solve a Steel City murder.
“North of Forbes,” a new commission by local playwright Tammy Ryan, is based on Agatha Christie’s first novel. It will stream from 7 p.m. Thursday through 10 p.m. Sunday as part of PPT’s Public PlayTime benefit series, “Classics N’at.”
Benton Greene portrays Poirot.
Christie’s 1920 tale, “The Mysterious Affair at Styles,” is set during World War I, where Poirot — a Belgian war refugee — is called upon to investigate the suspicious death of an older woman in her English countryside estate.
Ryan sets her work in 2016 Pittsburgh, in the neighborhood of stately homes known as North of Forbes, bounded by Fifth and Forbes avenues in North Squirrel Hill.
“I had heard of this place called North of Forbes with these beautiful, wealthy homes,” said Ryan, an East End resident.
When her daughter had a play date at a home in the area, Ryan said, “I was thinking about the house, and it kind of came to me that maybe it could be set in one of those fabulous houses.”
Ryan’s Poirot is a former police chief, now a private investigator, from Haiti. He is in the city to give a talk to Point Park University criminal justice students.
“I had to justify why he’d be in Pittsburgh, and I wanted to make him a person of color,” she said. She also wanted to create a character who would speak French, like the original Poirot.
She made an additional connection between the city and Haiti by giving her detective a tie to Haiti’s Hopital Albert Schweitzer, which has been supported by the Pittsburgh medical community.
She set the play in 2016, she said, to avoid the complicating factor of covid-19.
In both versions, there is no shortage of suspects after the murder — including the victim’s much-younger husband and two stepsons from a previous marriage.
Ryan also strove to include humorous touches, in the same way Christie did.
“The plot is similar. The family, the relationships and what happens is the same,” Ryan said. “I wanted to stay true to her, but I wasn’t going to rewrite Agatha Christie.
“I don’t want to give too much away.”
PPT commissioned “North of Forbes” in June. Ryan said she spent the summer “thinking, reading and researching” in preparation to begin writing in the fall.
“I probably reread (‘The Mysterious Affair at Styles’) 10 times,” she said.
Directed by Dexter J. Singleton, “North of Forbes” also features Ben Cherry, Seth Clayton, Shawn K. Jain, Laurie Klatscher, Rory Kulz, Jessie Wray Goodman, Tim McGeever, Tiffany Villarin and Drew Leigh Williams.
Donations for access to the stream begin at $10.
Details: ppt.org
Shirley McMarlin is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Shirley by email at smcmarlin@triblive.com or via Twitter .
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