Stage Review: The 39 Steps

The stage version of The 39 Steps is based on Alfred Hitchcock's 1936 film of the same name, which is based on a book by John Buchan, also of the same name.

The stage production follows Hitchcock's film faithfully, except it has only four actors playing all the parts, and whereas the film and book are thrillers, the play is a comedy, a comedy in the vein of Monty Python. It spoofs the movie, while honoring it at the same time.

The play opens with the main character, Richard Hannay, home in the evening with nothing to do. He decides to do something "pointless and mindless," so he goes to the theatre. At the music hall he meets a strange German woman, Annabella, who is afraid because she thinks two men are after her. She talks Hannay into taking her back to his flat.

In the middle of the night Annabella is murdered. Soon Hannay is on the run, wanted for the murder of the woman. He must get to Scotland to find the man Annabella told him about, and find out the truth of the 39 steps.

The production of The 39 Steps at the Hale Centre Theatre - Orem was very well done. The actors did a good job playing multiple characters, and it was well staged, for the most part.

The staging is very clever, using minimal props to recreate scenes from the movie. There is a great scene when two of the actors go from a man on a train, to a porter, to the conducter, to a newspaper boy, to a policeman with just a change of hats. The two actors did a great job. After that scene, there is a chase on the train, and you had to see it to appreciate its creative staging.

The play has some hilarious allusions to other Hitchcock movies, including Psycho, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Rear Window, and The Birds.

One problem with the staging of the play occurred because the theatre is in the round. Some funny "bits" we're missed by many members of the audience because they couldn't see them.

There were moments in the play when the characters interacted with members of the audience, and those moments were very funny. However, there was one moment during the second act when the actors acknowledged one of the actor's mother in the audience. That bit just fell flat for me because it was the actors interacting with the audience, not the characters interacting. I found it very unprofessional.

The 39 Steps played many years in London, and also had a brief run on Broadway. I saw it a few years ago at the Utah Shakespeare Festival, and I enjoyed that production more than the latest production I saw, not necessarily because the actors were better, but because it was on a proscenium stage, and I think it's better staged on that type of stage than in the round.

The 39 Steps is good fun, and if it were still playing in London, I would say let's go see it.