Theater Review: “Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘The 39 Steps’”

One of two British imports now mounted by the Roundabout Theatre (the other is Sunday in the Park With George), this clever spoof of the Master of Suspense sometimes strains a bit too hard for its effects. I will give it this, though: it makes me want to revisit the 1935 classic with Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll, which I haven’t seen in about 20 years.

Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon created the original British stage version of the film, with Patrick Barlow adapting it for his National Theatre of Brent. The latter venue has made something of aspecialty out of taking multi-character material and boiling it down to four-actor comedy epics such as Zulu and The Charles and Diana Show.

This has to be the busiest cast I’ve ever seen, particularly Cliff Saunders and Arnie Burton, who between them are called on to recreate well over 100 characters, compelling them to use every conceivable accent and, sometimes, a frenetic on-stage quick-change.

Charles Edwards plays Richard Hannay, an early variation of Hitchcock's titular character The Wrong Man, as much more of a lantern-jawed Englishman than Donat had in the film. (The latter was closer to the Cary Grant incarnation of the wary and cruel lover Devlin in Notorious.)

In the opening monologue, Hannay, sitting in his favorite club, admits to feeling bored (much like Cary Grant’s adman Roger O. Thornton of North by Northwest), then delivers a delicious punchline that in effect gives the audience a poke in the ribs on what to expect the rest of the way. He knew all of a sudden how to snap out of his malaise, Hannay says: “Go to the theater!”

The play’s plot is basically the same as the film’s: an innocent man is pursued across the British countryside for a murder he didn’t commit. Hitchcock added an element missing from the Canadian author John Buchan’s 1915 novel, which the current show wisely retains: a blonde with an icy exterior who conceals considerable heat.

It helps, but is not absolutely essential, to have seen at least a couple of Hitchcock’s films in order to appreciate a number of the lines and gags—not just jokey allusions to Vertigo, North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and The Lady Vanishes, but even the inevitable cameo appearance by Hitchcock (shown here in silhouette).

The biggest applause-getter at the mid-January matinee performance I attended was one word that, by that time, was already well on its way to becoming the cliché of the primary season. (Hint: it begins with the letter “C.”)

I’m in a Roundabout series that features a post-show discussion about the production history and themes of the play. Panelists can range from excellent (Ethan Mordden speaking after Old Acquaintance about playwright John Van Druten) to abysmal (Rhoda Koenig, an academic whose redundant asides sent the Pygmalion audience groaning and throwing their hands up as they flocked toward the exits in droves).

The featured guest this time, Professor Royal S. Brown, was one of the best guests in several years. Prodded skillfully by Roundabout dramaturge Ted Sod, Professor Brown pointed out three facts that I had not been aware of before about Hitchcock:
1) Hitchcock was so annoyed by his first American producer, master of memos David O. Selznick, that he insisted that Raymond Burr’s villain in Rear Window be made up to resemble his old tormenter;
2) while agreeing with an audience member that Psycho marked a sudden, disturbing lurch toward violence in Hitchcock’s oeuvre (my single attempt at French so far in my life, and with my luck, I probably botched it!), Prof. Brown noted that this thriller was also remarkable in that the director anticipated the chaos, alienation and violence that would characterize the Sixties.
3) Psycho was based on the Robert Bloch novel, which in turn was inspired by Ed Gein, a Wisconsin serial killer whose real-life horrifying exploits (including human skin that he recycled in clothing and household furniture) also inspired The Silence of the Lambs. Had Hitchcock explored all of Gein’s crimes, Brown suggested, Psycho audiences would have been “screaming from the theaters.” (Not that they weren’t anyway, as we all know by now).

The show ends March 29, and you can (and undoubtedly will) spend your money on worse Broadway shows. Still, I found the acclaim for the production excessive.

Critics fell over themselves applauding how the show used just a few items to conjure a host of props. For instance, chairs first suggest a jail, then a car. Rather than employ a string of extras, the show’s director, Maria Aitken, simply made do with paper marionettes to resemble Hannay’s pursuers.

For all its cleverness, however, a little of this goes a long way. The same reviewers who’ve gone on at some length over the years knocking the Roundabout’s middlebrow programming have forgotten everything they ever wrote when it comes to this show. I don’t see why the company could not have dusted off a long-forgotten theatrical gem, or even tried out a new play. If ever there was an example of settling for an audience-pleaser that doesn’t cost much, it’s this.