About the Play:

The Rule of Three is a collection of the three one-act plays by Agatha Christie. This triple bill of short, contrasting murder mysteries combines: the light hearted comedy Afternoon at the Seaside, in which a detective attempts to find a priceless emerald necklace and the culprit who stole it; The Patient, a tense thriller in which a woman has been hospitalized after seemingly falling from her balcony; and finally, The Rats, a dark and chilling tale in which a pair of adulterous lovers find themselves lured to a flat, trapped like rats and framed for murder.

In the first, Afternoon At The Seaside, a beautiful, mysterious, bikini wearing French woman, ogling men, and envious women provide the perfect undercurrents for theft. The scene is a crowded seaside beach in a resort area. Guys and girls in appropriate swimwear mingle with senior citizens in shirts, jumpers and slacks on the beach, while Lady Beckman's emerald necklace goes missing. A goodly collection of characters take part, including a French woman in a daring bikini who has all the men ogling and all the women seething. Nothing is what it seems in this hilarious seaside romp. It is not until the very end that the apparent French bathing beauty turns her wiles in another direction and emerges as a police woman who solves the otherwise perfect crime. (Cast: 5 women, 7 men)

The Patient is a darker story of a paralyzed woman who is certain that someone is trying to murder her Paralysed and unable to speak she must find a way to reveal her would-be murderer before they strike again. She is lying in a hospital completely paralysed following a fall from a balcony. Did she faint or was she pushed? The inspector, who realizes that the patient is not physically but psychically traumatized, cleverly determines that murder was intended and uses a devious ruse to trap the guilty party. (Cast: 4 women, 5 men)

The final story, The Rats sees an illicit couple caught in a trap. David and Sandra learn an invitation to a party, turns out to be a vehicle for revenge, for a long ago love affair. They arrive at a flat for the party and are surprised to find there is no party. They find themselves alone, discover a body, and soon realize they are being framed for the murder. Somebody knows about their affair and has locked them in so what will become of them? (Cast: 2 women, 2 men)

The Rule of Three toured the United Kingdom in 1961, and subsequently opened at the Duchess Theatre in the West End in 1962. This triple bill is regularly performed in regional repertory, high school, college, and community theatre productions.

About the Playwright:

Agatha Christie (1890-1976) is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in English with another billion in foreign languages. She is the most widely published author of all time and, in many languages, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. In a writing career that spanned more than half a century, Agatha Christie wrote 66 crime novels, 150 short story collections, over 20 plays, and six novels written under the name Mary Westmacott. Her work includes Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, and the genre-defining And Then There Were None. In addition several of her original works were adapted for the stage by third parties.