*** Spoiler Alert ***
(As if anyone on this board doesn't know how "The Mousetrap" ends!)
I have seen a couple of productions of "Mousetrap", good and bad, and I think the thing to remember about Trotter is that his persona through most of the play is formed from books and movies--he's not a "real" policeman, but a popular idea of what a policeman is--gruff, efficient, overbearing. This makes it shocking at the end when this facade cracks away, revealing a devilishly childish cunning underneath. ("I killed her...in the fog. It was great fun!") The trick is to hint at this throughout the play without making it obvious. The speech after Mrs. Boyle's death is the perfect spot for this--
"I've got to deal with a crazy cunning brain. Two little blind mice cancelled out. One mouse still to be dealt with."
In one awful production I saw, the Trotter delivered these lines in such a sinister, Basil Rathbone way (he did everything but twirl a mustache) that the audience almost laughed; it was obvious at that moment who the killer was. So you see, it is a very fine line. Audiences at the time were used to trusting the police, so the ending was a great shock to them; nowadays, with Rodney King, etc., in real life and "The Shield" on TV, we're not so easily taken in.
I ask in all honesty/What would life be?/Without a song and a dance, what are we?/So I say "Thank you for the music/For giving it to me."
