By Cory Bilicko
Arts & Entertainment Writer
Long Beach can now claim the distinction of being home to the first official stage adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s classic detective novel The Maltese Falcon. As a matter of fact, jazz fans might recognize the name of the person responsible for bringing the story to the boards.
Helen Borgers, who’s been a deejay at KKJZ for the last 26 years, received permission from Hammett’s family to adapt the book for theater audiences at The Richard Goad Theatre. Although she’ll tell you that having the author’s granddaughter on the board of directors certainly helped to facilitate the endorsement, Borgers still has much to be proud of, since she also directed this successful performance.
This script and production incorporate elements of the novel that were omitted from the 1941 John Huston-directed screen version, which was nominated for three Oscars and ranks as #23 on the American Film Institute’s 100 best movies in American cinema.
The lead character of Sam Spade, played by Humphrey Bogart in that film, is here portrayed by Dan Flapper, who more accurately embodies the description of Spade as Hammett wrote it–a tall, “blonde satan.”
Audiences who are only familiar with the film might feel a bit disoriented when the lights come up on Flapper as the cynical investigator, who looks, acts and talks nothing like Bogie, but he’ll likely win them over with his astonishingly high-speed chatter, which is both seamless and intelligible.
The story begins with a Ms. O’Shaughnessy seeking the services of Spade and his partner Archer in finding a man named Thursby, with whom her sister has run off. They agree to take on the case, Archer and Thursby both end up dead, and Spade is a suspect in the latter’s death. As the police pursue Spade’s arrest, he becomes much more familiar with his client, and the ever-deepening plot comes to revolve around a black bird statue called “the Maltese falcon,” which most of the characters are desperately trying to get their hands on.
In becoming acquainted with O’Shaughnessy, Spade tells her about a man he was once hired to find and how his solving the unusual case led him to his own personal outlook on life’s meaning. The speech was excluded from the Huston film, but Borgers wrote it into her adaptation since it provides significant insight into Spade’s philosophy.
Adhering to the book’s ending, Borgers de-emphasizes the romantic link between detective and client to ponder the ultimate sacrifice Spade makes in solving the case. His actions disgust his secretary Effie, who tells him not to touch her while nevertheless admitting that he’s right.
It is this moral ambiguity that is the heart of The Maltese Falcon, and Borgers herself was “right” in reinserting these fundamental components into the narrative that would eventually pave the way for the hard-boiled detective story.
The world premiere of The Maltese Falcon is playing through November 3 at The Richard Goad Theatre as a production of the Long Beach Shakespeare Company. The theatre is located at 4250 Atlantic Avenue in Bixby Knolls. Performances are Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. General admission tickets are $15.
Call (562) 997-1494 or visit www.lbshakespeare.org for more information.
