Hitchcock fans who don’t take themselves too seriously will get a kick out of “The 39 Steps,” the first show of the Malibu Playhouse’s 2014-2015 season, but you don’t have to be a classic movie buff to laugh along.
The play, which sweeps up the audience in a sometimes literal whirlwind of adventure, follows the pitfalls of devilishly handsome English gent Richard Hannay (Derek Manson) as he evades double-agents, dashes through misty Scottish moors and tries to get the girl, played brilliantly by Emily Goss, all while keeping his country safe amidst rumors of war in 1935.
While the play, adapted by Patrick Barlow from the Hitchcock classic based on a book by John Buchan, pokes fun at Hitch’s so-serious suspenseful style, it’s a delight to audiences young and old, including those unfamiliar with any of Hitchcock’s work.
The cast of four makes artful work of the 100-minute production, during which actors Dieterich Gray and Mike Funt transform into dozens of characters at breakneck speed, doing the heavy lifting of the production while hardly breaking a sweat.
The play opens with Hannay in London watching a performance by “Mr. Memory,” a man whose great skill in memorizing facts and information captivates the audience until Annabella Schmidt, the first of Goss’s three female characters, fires her gun into the air. At the gunshot, chaos breaks out in the theater. Annabella and Hannay flee back to Hannay’s flat, where Annabella discloses there is a threat to national security. She is murdered that night and Hannay is forced on the run in Scotland, trying to get the answer to the mystery that will save the country.
In Scotland, Hannay meets underwear salesmen, an old Scottish farmer, police, spies, a professor, an old couple who own an inn and more, all played by Gray and Funt. Goss is back as a Scottish beauty and later as an uptight Englishwoman, in roles so transformative you would hardly believe it’s the same actress who minutes earlier was a slain European spy in Hannay’s London flat.
Hannay has several close calls with death and capture, and by the end of the play, well, it’s no good to give away the ending of an action-thriller.
Walking into the theater before the show opens gives the appearance of walking into a dusty garage, with steamer trunks, ladders and swaths of fabric haphazardly tossed around an otherwise unadorned stage. Scenic designers Heather Graff and Richard Peterson stayed close to the original vision for the show, in which these items come to life to become everything from a train to a bed to the famous Forth Bridge.
Lighting designer Leigh Allen took a chance with the window in Hannay’s apartment, which comes into play early on in the production. Allen’s swath of light across the stage signifies light from a window that Hannay struggles to block. Fortunately, Manson and stage manager Ashley Henley performed a choreographed feat that went off without a hitch, much to the delight of the audience.
The play is written to toy with the fourth wall, giving a wink to the audience now and again, and director Ron West uses this flexibility to his advantage, seamlessly allowing spectators a chance to chime in with sound effects. While often times audience participation can feel forced, under West’s direction the house was more than happy to baa like sheep blocking the road to Inveraray.
Dialect coach Cynthia Blaise had her work cut out for her on this show, helping Gray and Funt create finessed Cockney English, London, Edinburgh, Scottish Highland and German accents. The downside was that at times the dialect seemed almost too perfect, where an outrageously bad Scottish brogue may have come into play.
The small but enthusiastic audience for Sunday’s matinee took a couple scenes to warm up as the comedy set its pace, but once the laughs started there was no slowing down. As is always the case with a comedy, a full house makes for a higher-energy show, but you would hardly know it as Manson, Goss, Gray and Funt were on point throughout and even longer, more dialogue-heavy scenes were kept on a fast, laugh-heavy pace.
The 39 Steps runs through Nov. 23, with performances Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. Regular priced tickets are $34, with discounts available to seniors and students. Tickets may be purchased at malibuplayhouse.org or by calling 310.589.1998.
