“THE 39 STEPS”: Performances are underway for Princeton Summer Theater’s production of “The 39 Steps.” Directed by Erik Bloomquist, the play runs through July 18 at Princeton University’s Hamilton Murray Theater. Above, from left: The mysterious Annabella Schmidt (one of three roles played by Shaelin McKenna) enigmatically tells Richard Hannay (Jacob Schorsch) about the spy network he’s stumbled upon, starting him on a dangerous journey. (Photo by Dave Apuzzo)
By Donald H. Sanborn III
Princeton Summer Theater is continuing its season with The 39 Steps. Erik Bloomquist directs a dazzling, tightly paced production of a script that retells the classic spy thriller through a comic lens.
The final (2005) script for this adaptation is penned by Patrick Barlow. Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon, who penned an initial version, are given an “original concept” credit.
In 1996 the play premiered at the Georgian Theatre Royal in North Yorkshire. Under different variations on the title, the rewritten version has been presented at the West Yorkshire Playhouse (2005), the West End’s Criterion Theatre (2006), Boston’s Huntington Theatre Company (2007), the Cort Theatre on Broadway (2008), and the Union Square Theatre (2015).
As material for a stage production, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 film (which screenwriters Charles Bennett and Ian Hay adapted from John Buchan’s 1915 novel The Thirty-Nine Steps) is both potent and somewhat risky.
On quite a few levels, the story is a natural fit for live theater. Two major scenes take place during a performance; and another is set in a political rally (which arguably is an equally theatrical event, especially given the protagonist’s unexpected involvement in it). Further, the thriller employs mistaken and dual identities; characters often assume a role (or have one thrust upon them).
The risk largely concerns this version’s distinct treatment of the story. Out of a quartet of performers, only one (the actor playing the hero, Richard Hannay) portrays a single role. The other three cast members are given multiple roles; a female performer plays three different characters, with the other two actors covering the numerous remaining parts. Without careful treatment, this could inhibit clarity in retelling an already labyrinthine plot.
However, this risk is mitigated both by the source material, whose characters are distinct; and this adaptation, which presents the characters as recognizable period archetypes. As is suggested by identifying two cast members as Clown 1 and Clown 2, the constant (often frenetic) changing of roles — at times, within scenes — becomes a key source of humor.
The well-tailored costumes by Alex Conboy and Didi Vekri, which satisfyingly evoke the period (replete with fedoras for most of the male characters), further aid in demarcating the multiple roles (at times hilariously, notably when a tough-talking agent transforms into the kindly wife of an innkeeper).
The show seems to borrow from both the original novel and the film. Devotees of the movie will recognize most of the plot details, but the play’s script employs the novel’s element of first-person narration, letting Hannay wryly introduce his adventure.
Hannay (who in this production is given a smoothly debonair portrayal by Jacob Schorsch) attends a theater at which a Compere (Clown 1, portrayed by Joe McLean) introduces the entertainment: Mr. Memory (Clown 2, played by Jordan Rashdan), who, as his moniker suggests, can recall an astonishing number of facts in response to questions posed by members of the audience — and palpably is overwhelmed by all of the information contained in his mind.
Both the set by Jeff Van Velsor (with scenic art by Pearl Agel) and the lighting by Florencia Curchitser immediately establish a glitzy theatrical setting. Two small doorways, covered by bright red curtains, bookend a central proscenium that is framed by lightbulbs. The concealed doorways heighten the sense of mystery; and letting the play’s action happen on a stage-within-a-stage underlines both the auditorium’s importance to the story and the concept of assumed, or assigned, roles.
At Mr. Memory’s performance, Hannay meets the mysterious Annabella Schmidt (Shaelin McKenna), who later confides to him that she is a spy. A gunshot is fired in the auditorium, and soon Annabella begs Hannay to hide her in his apartment, explaining that she is being pursued by a “secret agent of a certain foreign power who is on point of obtaining highly confidential information vital to your air defense.”
In addition to lodging, Annabella also requests a map of Scotland, where a crucial character lives. Hannay provides the map, but Annabella does not live to use it; in the middle of the night, Hannay discovers that she has been stabbed in the back. She dies, but not before giving Hannay a few final, enigmatic bits of information.
This nighttime scene showcases Schorsch’s knack for physical comedy, Curchitser’s lighting, and the sound design by Kirk Longhofer and Bloomquist. As Hannay tries to sleep on his chair (ever the gentleman, he has lent Annabella his bed), he quickly changes to new, rather contorted positions in between blackouts.
After Annabella dies, we hear her voice reverberate throughout different pockets of the auditorium, repeating the crucial but vastly incomplete clues that she has dropped. Throughout the show, the sound design is central in helping to establish both the era and the style of the piece, enveloping the audience in dramatic music typical of the period (and, in a nod to Hitchcock’s film, punctuating scenes with sudden sound effects, such as the ringing of a telephone).
Hannay soon finds himself under suspicion for Annabella’s murder. On a quest to clear his name, he becomes immersed in Annabella’s dangerous world as he tries to follow her clues. In the course of his adventures he meets a religiously zealous crofter, a professor (whose highly problematic political alignment is more pronounced here than in Hitchcock’s film), and a variety of policemen who may or may not be on the side of the law.
McKenna is entertaining in all three of her distinct roles. Besides Annabella, she plays the crofter’s wife (who generously lends Hannay a coat that contains an important item); and the blond, brusqe Pamela, who initially helps the authorities catch Hannay, but eventually becomes an unwitting part of his adventures (which include trying to check into an inn while handcuffed to him).
Hannay and Pamela inauspiciously meet when he hastily kisses her to hide his face from the authorities. The scene is well executed and performed by Schorsch, McKenna, and Intimacy Designer Kat McLaughlin. (Intimacy designers have been fairly recently added to production teams, largely to ensure actors’ safety and consent relating to scenes with physical affection, so it is a bit ironic that here McLaughlin’s tasks include a scene with an unwanted kiss in-story.)
McKenna is deft in handling Pamela’s gradual change in attitude toward Hannay. Both McKenna and Schorsch understand and convey the humor in the piece (Schorsch is particularly entertaining when Hannay, to stall for time, fumbles for words while giving an impromptu campaign speech for a candidate he knows nothing about) — while avoiding the temptation to reduce the characters to objects of satire.
Bloomquist is a (two-time regional Emmy-winning) director of both stage shows and films, who previously has directed The 39 Steps at Ivoryton Playhouse in 2016. PST’s current production benefits both from his familiarity with the play, and his experience with films.
The direction brings swift, cinematic seamless transitions between scenes, letting the show steadily build to the climax. Bloomquist lets the uniformly versatile cast and creative team revel in the script’s embrace of pastiche and stylized performances, without reducing the piece to those elements.
Audiences who prefer more serious drama (or less stylized performances) may find The 39 Steps a bit over the top. However, for those (including this writer) who are entertained by the period pastiches, and humorous juxtaposition of tense thriller and preposterous dual roles and costume changes, there is much for PST’s audience to enjoy.
“The 39 Steps” will play at the Hamilton Murray Theater in Murray Dodge Hall, Princeton University, through July 18. For tickets, show times, and further information, visit princetonsummertheater.org.