The Bat (play)

Mary Roberts Rinehart based the play on her novel, The Circular Staircase.

Elderly, single Cornelia Van Gorder is renting an old, isolated Long Island mansion owned by the estate of Courtleigh Fleming, a bank president who had reportedly died several months before. On a stormy evening, the electricity flickers on and off. Most of the servants, convinced that the house is haunted, have made excuses and fled. According to a news report, a mysterious criminal known as "the Bat" has eluded police in the area. Cornelia is in the house with her maid, Lizzie, and Billy, a Japanese butler who is part of Fleming's household staff.[lower-alpha 1] They are joined by Brooks, a gardener recently hired by Cornelia's niece, Dale Ogden. Dale and Dr. Wells, the local coroner and an old friend of Fleming's, arrive for a visit. They tell Cornelia that Jack Bailey, a cashier at Fleming's bank, has disappeared and is suspected of stealing over a million dollars. Cornelia tells Lizzie and Dale that she has invited a police detective to visit because someone has been trying to break into the house at night. Wells leaves, and Detective Anderson arrives. Cornelia tells Anderson that she suspects Fleming embezzled from the bank and hid the money in the house. While Cornelia shows Anderson to his room, Dale warns Brooks (who is actually Jack Bailey, and Dale's fiancé) that Anderson is a detective. Brooks also believes that Fleming hid the money, and wants to clear himself by finding it. Dale summons Fleming's nephew, Richard (who rented the house to Cornelia), to learn about possible hiding places. Richard shows her a blueprint of the house, with a hidden room where the money might be. While they fight over the blueprint, a figure appears in the darkness and shoots Richard, ending the first act.

Cornelia calls Dr. Wells back to the house to examine Richard's body. Dale asks Wells to hide the blueprint she took from Richard because the others might think that she killed him for it. Reginald Beresford, a lawyer waiting in his car after he drove Richard to the house, comes inside. Reginald recognizes Jack, and the exposure of her fiancé makes Dale admit that she gave Wells the blueprint with the hidden room. Wells claims that he does not have the blueprint; Cornelia reveals other evidence incriminating him, and Anderson asks to question him alone. Wells knocks Anderson unconscious during the interrogation and drags him into another room. Before Wells can go to the hidden room, a stranger claiming to have lost his memory after he was attacked and tied up in the garage appears at the terrace door. When the guests try to identify the unknown man, they discover that they have been locked in the house. At the end of the second act, Cornelia finds the Bat's calling card, a black paper bat, tacked to a door.

The third act begins on the upper floor of the house, where a masked man is seen in the previously-hidden room taking a money bag from a safe. When Dale finds the room, the man flees, leaving her and the money locked inside. The others find her there, unconscious. Anderson reappears and accuses Wells of stealing the money and killing Richard. Cornelia begins to present an alternative theory, but is interrupted when the unknown man comes upstairs and Anderson asks him about his amnesia. Cornelia says that she sees a man on the roof, and most of the group leaves to look for him. Cornelia uses the distraction to tell Dale, Jack and the unknown man that she thinks the money is still in the room. When they search for the money, Jack finds the body of Courtleigh Fleming, who was killed only recently. As Cornelia, Dale and Jack argue about what has happened, the unknown man locks the door and orders them to be quiet. When the masked man sneaks in through a window, the unknown man apprehends him and reveals that he, the unknown man, is the real Detective Anderson; the Bat (the masked man) had pretended to be Anderson.

Avery Hopwood helped Rinehart complete the play.

Mary Roberts Rinehart was one of the most successful American mystery writers of the early 20th century.[3] After starting her writing career with short stories, she achieved popular success with the publication of her 1908 novel The Circular Staircase.[3][4] In 1909 Broadway producers Lincoln Wagenhals and Collin Kemper asked Rinehart to adapt her novella Seven Days for the stage. She agreed to work with Avery Hopwood, a young playwright with just one produced play, to create the script. The play Seven Days debuted on Broadway in November 1909 and became a hit. Rinehart and Hopwood each continued to write plays, but did not collaborate again until The Bat.[5]

In 1916, Rinehart asked theatrical producer Edgar Selwyn whether he thought a mystery play would be successful if it kept the mystery unresolved until the end; Selwyn replied that such a play could make a million dollars. Rinehart decided to base this play on The Circular Staircase, which had been adapted for film in 1915. Although she began work on the play in spring 1917, she was distracted by work for the United States Department of War during World War I and by fall 1918 had only written the first two acts.[6] Rinehart approached Hopwood for help completing the play while she was in Europe for the War Department.[7][8] Hopwood was interested, but did not work on the play when she was overseas.[7][9]

After Rinehart returned in 1919, Hopwood joined her in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, where she lived; they worked on the play there and in New York City until they completed it. While they worked on The Bat, Wagenhals and Kemper asked them to work on a script for Spanish Love (an adaptation of María del Carmen, an 1896 Spanish play). Writing both plays required Rinehart and Hopwood to work long hours.[10][11] By early April 1920, they were working on a final, more-humorous round of revisions for The Bat.[12]

Effie Ellsler played Cornelia in the first Broadway production.

Rinehart and Hopwood finished The Bat during the afternoon of April 11, 1920. She was called away moments later when her daughter-in-law went into labor, and her granddaughter was born early the next day.[10][13] Rinehart decided to focus on family obligations and missed the reading of the play to Wagenhals and Kemper, who expressed interest in staging it after Hopwood shared a draft with them. She missed The Bat's rehearsals and its Broadway debut, although she attended preview performances.[14][15]

Before its Broadway opening, the play previewed in Washington, D.C., where it opened at the Belasco Theater on June 14, 1920, as A Thief in the Night.[16] The following week, it previewed in Atlantic City, New Jersey.[17] With Rinehart's preferred title restored, The Bat opened on Broadway at the Morosco Theatre on August 23, 1920. The play was produced by Wagenhals and Kemper; the latter also directed. The Broadway production closed in September 1922 after 867 performances.[18] Before it closed, Wagenhals and Kemper sent six road companies to tour the United States.[19] On January 23, 1922, The Bat opened a 327-performance run in London at St James's Theatre in the West End.[18]

The play was revived twice on Broadway. The first revival, produced by Ben Lundy and directed by Benjamin F. Kamsler, opened on May 31, 1937, at the Majestic Theatre as part of a summer-stock program.[20] Scheduled to run for a week, it was extended and closed after two weeks and 11 performances.[21][22] The second revival opened on January 20, 1953, at the National Theatre and closed on February 7 after 23 performances.[18][23]

Lucile Watson played Cornelia in the 1953 revival.

The play's lead role is Cornelia Van Gorder, played in the first production by Effie Ellsler. Despite The Bat's unusually long run, Ellsler appeared in almost every performance (including the evening after she heard about her husband's death); she left the part only briefly, after collapsing onstage during the production's final week. The Bat was her last Broadway role.[24][25]

Wagenhals and Kemper cast Harrison Hunter in the play's title role. They did not show Hunter or the other cast members the final scene (in which the Bat's identity is revealed) until shortly before the dress rehearsal. Hunter, who had thought he was playing a detective, was upset to learn that his role was that of a criminal,[26] although he remained in the role for the entire Broadway run before joining a touring company for the play. At the end of 1922, while still playing the Bat, Hunter became ill and died a week later.[27]

The play's primary comic relief is provided by Lizzie, played in the initial Broadway production by May Vokes. Vokes returned to the role for the 1937 revival, where she was joined by Richard Barrows (also from the original cast, but in a different role). Minnette Barrett, an understudy in the original production, played Cornelia in the revival.

Productions of The Bat included the initial Broadway run, a production in London's West End and two later Broadway revivals, with the following opening-night casts:

The 1930 film, The Bat Whispers, was based on the play.

The Bat is considered a classic example of comedy-mystery;[33][48] drama critic Joseph Twadell Shipley called it "the most popular and most shiverful of our murder mystery dramas".[49] Many of its elements are now clichés.[38][50] The Bat's success encouraged imitators to set mysteries mixed with comedy in old, dark houses which some of the characters think are haunted. The Cat and the Canary by John Willard opened on Broadway in February 1922 and ran for 349 performances. Another successful imitation was Crane Wilbur's The Monster, which opened on Broadway in August of that year.[18][51] Ralph Spence's 1925 play, The Gorilla, parodied the genre; according to its advertisements, it "outbats The Bat".[52]

Film versions soon followed, including a 1925 adaptation of The Monster and multiple adaptations of The Cat and the Canary and The Gorilla. By the late 1920s, the mysteries' popularity was declining in live theater, although the genre continued in films such as James Whale's The Old Dark House (1932) and several adaptations of The Bat.[53][54]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Bat (play).

• ​The Bat​ at the Internet Broadway Database
• Mary Roberts Rinehart Papers at the University of Pittsburgh Library System
• The Bat novelization public domain audiobook at LibriVox