The 39 Steps
\nAdapted by Patrick Barlow
\nfrom the movie by Alfred Hitchcock
\nand the novel by John Buchan
\nState Theatre Company of South Australia
\nDunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre.
\nAugust 23 . Tickets: $ 28 – $72.
\nBookings : BASS 131246 or www.bass.net.au
\nUntil September 11.
\nDuration: 2 hours including interval.<\/p>\n
Written in 1914 by the English novelist John Buchan as a distraction during convalescence, The 39 Steps became the enduring prototype for the fugitive thriller. Then, adapted and re-written by Alfred Hitchcock and his team, the 1935 film marked a high point in his British career, using tropes and signatures which later defined his Hollywood classics.<\/p>\n
The ripping yarn of British patriot Richard Hannay, on the run in Scotland, in pursuit of master spies and foreign agents posing as pillars of the establishment, captured the zeitgeist prior to both world wars.<\/p>\n
A new century brought a fresh twist to a beloved text when in 2006 English writer and comedian Patrick Barlow scripted the film version to be played as a stage comic thriller;\u00a0 a tour de farce by four actors. Fun would be had with the hats, trench coats and pencil moustaches – and dialogue intended for 240 characters was now divvied up four ways.<\/p>\n
One actor plays Hannay, another the three intriguing women from the Hitchcock version, and two hypermanic thespians play everyone else in a flurry of hats, wigs, false beards, accents and dialects which span the British Isles and beyond.<\/p>\n
Ten years after Barlow\u2019s play became a West End hit, the State Theatre Company and director Jon Halpin have again put The 39 Steps through its paces. And a fine and funny job they have made of it. Designer Ailsa Paterson has created a Thirties deco proscenium fa\u00e7ade within which tall scaffold frames on wheels imaginatively become parlours, hotel lobbies and street scenes. A painted flat of a Scottish moor recreates the mysteries of Hannay\u2019s pursuit, intriguingly lit in foggy noir by Geoff Cobham. Stuart Day\u2019s music is an excellent mix of period dance styles, rolling drums and a brass band version of The Teddy Bears\u2019 Picnic.<\/p>\n
The actors rise to the task. Nathan Page plays the intrepid Hannay seriously enough to keep the suspense moving, while adding the necessary drollery. Anna Steen crisply captures the doomed agent Annabella Schmidt, the melancholy Margaret and the unflustered heroine Pamela Edwards.<\/p>\n
Moving through The Others and the Other Others, as Barlow calls the 236 remaining parts, Charles Mayer luxuriates as the villainous Professor, escalating to Milligan goonery for the Scottish characters. Tim Overton as Mr Memory, the hotelier\u2019s wife and a multitude of gormless offsiders, is equally a comic delight.<\/p>\n
Halpin has kept the pace brisk but is careful to savour the jokes and visual gags \u2013 the extended silent scream of the housekeeper parodying the Hitchcock set piece, the witty jokes with props, the mis-timed scene changes, the slapstick and hat changing schtick. Such fresh, inventive stagecraft makes re-tracing The 39 Steps entertaining all over again.<\/p>\n
Murray Bramwell<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the right steps in a hilarious, hypermanic tour de farce\u201d The Australian, August 25, 2016, p.15<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The 39 Steps Adapted by Patrick Barlow from the movie by Alfred Hitchcock and the novel by John Buchan State Theatre Company of South Australia Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre. August 23 . Tickets: $ 28 – $72. Bookings : BASS 131246 or www.bass.net.au Until September 11. Duration: 2 hours including interval. Written in 1914 by the English novelist John Buchan as a distraction during convalescence, The 39 Steps became the enduring prototype for the fugitive thriller. Then, adapted and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,5,14,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-36","category-archive","category-state-theatre-company","category-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2714"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2715,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2714\/revisions\/2715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}