Latest

The 39 Steps

 

Presented by Adelaide Repertory Theatre Society
Reviewed Thursday 19th August 2011

http://www.adelaiderep.com/current-season/the-39-steps

Venue: ARTS Theatre, 53 Angas Street, Adelaide
Season: 8pm Wed to Sat until 27th August, 2pm Sat 27th August 2011
Duration: 2hrs 15min incl interval
Tickets: adult $20/conc $15
Bookings: BASS 131 241 or http://www.bass.net.au

No, this is not a stage recreation of the famous 1935 Alfred Hitchcock film, adapted from the 1915 novel by John Buchan. This multi award winning farce is a parody of that film, where one actor plays Richard Hannay, an actress plays the three women with whom he becomes romantically involved, and the other two of the four performers frantically recreate the rest of the characters. The script was written by Patrick Barlow, from an original concept by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon, who envisaged it as a work for only two actors.

Belfast born British comedian, Frank Carson, had a catch phrase; “It's the way I tell 'em”. That could well be applied to this production, in that the story line, and quite a bit of the dialogue, closely follows that of the film or book. It is the way in which the material is delivered that turns a spy thriller into an hilarious comedy. That is where director, Esther Lamb comes in, lifting the words and directions from the script and bringing them to life or, to be more accurate, much larger than life through her ideally selected cast.

Opening with the strains of Gounod's The Funeral March of a Marionette, Hitchcock's famous theme tune for his television series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, the play begins with Canadian, Richard Hannay, sitting in an armchair, setting the scene with words taken directly from the novel. Samuel Rogers looks every bit what one would expect of Buchan's hero: tall, elegant, smartly dressed, puffing casually on a pipe, and with his stiff upper lip appropriately adorned with a pencil moustache.

At the theatre he watches Mr. Memory, a man with a photographic memory, but the act is interrupted by a gunshot. A woman, Anabella Smith, talks him into taking her to his home, where she explains that she is a spy and that her life is in danger. The next morning he finds her dead, with a knife in her back, so he borrows a milkman's coat and sneaks out in disguise, knowing that he will be a suspect. He heads for Scotland to find out what the 39 Steps are, following her instructions and directions, but the police are in pursuit and his escape attempt is highly eventful.

He is tracked by police biplanes, cornered on a train, and kisses Pamela, a complete stranger, hoping the police will pass the compartment without discovering him, thinking they are newlyweds. She exposes him, however, and eventually he jumps from the train, eventually leaping from the Forth Bridge, after trying to evade them by climbing over the girders, a series of events that you have to see to believe. Yes, it all happens live, on stage. Sneaking out of windows, slipping quietly in and out of doors and, in fact, almost every move in the play becomes a comic event. Rogers carries it off perfectly, maintaining that surface appearance of the cool adventurer with an eye for the ladies, whilst engaging in both textual and physical comedy with a straight face.

Sarah Agius plays Annabella, as well as Pamela and Margaret, the much younger wife of a Scottish farmer. It is Pamela to whom Hannay later finds himself handcuffed as he tries to escape the enemy agents who killed Annabella. Agius, like Rogers, does that careful balancing act between maintaining the integrity of the characters and capturing the comedy. Rogers and Agius make a great team as the squabbling couple, inexorably drawn to one another.

Then there are Tom Bayford and Sean Flierl, listed unassumingly as Clown 1 and Clown 2 in the programme, who play every other role, often several at the same time. At one point the train stops at a station and they each produce three hats, changing them at breakneck speed to represent six different characters. These two engage in a constant exercise of quick costumes and accent changes, with some dialects that you'll never hear in Scotland adding to their hilarity. They are big on physical comedy, with chases and slapstick galore as they pursue Hannay and Pamela across Scotland and, finally, back to the London Palladium, the theatre where it all began (although, as television had not yet begun broadcasting in the 1930s, the theme from Sunday Night at the London Palladium was premature by about three decades, giving yet another laugh to those in the know).

There were a few times when the pace fell away a little, and numerous set changes were a little longer than needed because the lights were slow to come up and actors were often slow to enter, something that has probably tightened up by now.

Laraine Wheeler's lighting adds much to the film noir feel and, having co-designed the set with Esther Lamb, the two elements work very closely together. Hugh Hunkin's sound design, too, fits like a glove and the one miscuing, like any other odd thing that was slightly off during the evening, simply gave the brilliant duo of Bayford and Flierl a chance to point it out, rather than cover it up, stealing even more laughs.

This great night of farce definitely has to be your first choice if you need a good laugh to shake off the winter blues, but don't wait too long as bookings are bound to be heavy now that word has got around.

Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Arts Editor, Glam Adelaide.
 

More News

To Top