The 39 Steps. An Auspicious Beginning for the New Gladstone.
Richard Gélinas and Zach Council. photo: Alan Dean
The New Gladstone “larger than life” Theatre opened this week as a great buzz of excitement ran through that beautiful foyer. It captured the special feel of the official launching of the whole Ottawa theatre season which meant that everybody who was anybody had to be there to see The 39 Steps by Patrick Barlow, directed by John P. Kelly and produced by SevenThirty productions.
The trajectory of this play is unusual. It began as a mystery spy novel in 1915 written by Scottish novelist John Buchan, also just as well-known as Lord Tweedsmuir who became the Governor General of Canada in 1935, and who created the Governor General’s literary awards before his death in 1940. The 39 Steps was adapted to the screen by Alfred Hitchcock in 1935, the first of a series of screen adaptations that were various imitations of Hitchcock’s original. Then in 2005, a new form of imitation was born.
Patrick Barlow’s play is actually a parody of Hitchcock’s movie version which is a serious spy story about a man mistakenly accused of murder, chased all over the British isles, especially through Scotland. While carrying on with a nice lady from London, he unwittingly becomes involved in a Nazi Spy plot, perfectly believable since this takes place on the eve of World War II, a period when Hitler imitations, remember Charlie Chaplin, were proliferating across stage and screen.
The 39 Steps moves scene by scene through the 1935 film, taking the movie apart shot by shot as it embellishes the staging with send ups of various moments from other Hitchcock films. If you can first imagine a fairly empty stage judiciously sprinkled with props, try then to imagine a crop duster plane, consisting of two actors dressed up as a tail and a cockpit, buzzing a man running through a field and trying not to crash . The illusion is perfect and this intricately tricky staging inspires the imagination to bring it all to life.
The director has adopted the most hilarious moments of American and British comedy, beginning with British music hall acts, silent film star emoting, as well as Monty Python’s unmistakable brand of spaced out sometimes nasty physical comedy. I even detected moments of naughty Benny Hill whose work was perhaps a bit too racy for Canadian Television. But we mustn’t leave out film noir, which becomes the brunt of a lot of funniness by author Patrick Barlow. Thanks to all these sources, our very own fun-loving man of the Irish stage John P. Kelly , has brought into the Gladstone, an evening of humour, of the kind one only expects from The Company of Fools. Creating a marvellous hybrid of humours, director Kelly who tightly orchestrated it all, has turned this into a most exciting and energetic free for all
Theatre was always Hitchcock’s first love. In fact The 39 Steps begins and ends with scenes from British music hall where the great climax happens on the stage of the Palladium theatre in London, as it did in the film. Thus the play, even though it is a parody, is precisely a fitting homage to the man whose films were filtered through a very theatrical gaze.
Directing four actors through a whole crowd of the most excentric “personnages”, John P . Kelly, has produced a work that is fiercely funny, full of side splitting stage business, that make unexpected use of the most commonplace of props: doors, windows, ladders and other “things” that wander all over the stage, that transform the space, that suddenly open and shut to let the fugitive Richard Hannay and his female cohort (Kate Smith) escape with detectives hot on their heels.
Once the couple arrives in Scotland, on the run, the landscape changes as Ireland, Canada and Britain meet Scotland and strange creatures emerge from the foggy highlands. .
One will never forget Zak Counsil as Professor Jordan’s wife, leading the nervous Hannay in a strange dance around the doors, that twist and twirl, that open and shut, that keep confusing left and right, in and out, as the whole space melts, giving us the illusion we are turning in circles as we walk through the empty dimly lit and totally invisible corridors of an old house, where more Hitchcock horror mysteries move in to tickle our funny bone.
. Al Conors plays Richard Hannay, the handsome, charming victim and the unwitting hero, the Canadian and/or British adventurer (the ambiguity appears to be intentional and maintained by the absence of Connor’s English accent). One day, he sits drinking whiskey in his boring London flat, the next,he suddenly finds himself face to face, with a sultry German person (the first of many women created beautifully by Kate Smith). I could barely make out what she was saying, given her rather off kilter German accent but no matter, we got the gist of it. This is famous Annabella Schmeert , a German Agent who has seen terrible things and is being chased by whom? We aren’t sure but she is the one who first mentions the enigmatic “Thirty nine Steps”.
After pulling out the huge knife that someone has plunged into her back, and upon sliding out from under her corpse (never fear, Kate Smith will soon be back in a new form), Richard Hannay, or Hammond, is wrongly accused of murder. He then takes off on a roller coaster of stage gags and physical antics that will keep you glued to the proscenium arch…because you feel that even that frontal stage might stand up and walk away in this field of ambulating objects. But the hunt for the Thirty nine steps has begun and Mr. Hannay never stops running.
Unfortunately, the blackouts during the multiple set changes made the energy drop at regular intervals, in spite of all the hilarious moments. They might have added some appropriate background music, such as the excellent moments of sound we heard during the scenes. But the second act corrected that quickly and the dead moments revived rapidly and all that brutal energy came back.
In general these were sparkling sequences of great moments that propelled us along at a good rate. There was that little chef d’oeuvre of a train ride which had them all squeezing past each other in the train compartment and Richard sinking into his seat hiding his face with a newspaper, or running from the police and crawling along the outside of the roaring train as all their coats and hair flapped in the wind. Director Kelly seemed to be echoing some of the meticulous physicality from Spent, the play that came from Toronto for the Undercurrents festival at the Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre last year.
Much of the comic excitement however, is due to the absolutely brilliant performances by Richard Gélinas and Zach Counsil. From Scottish sheep herding couple, to the sleekly monstrous Nazi spies, from Scotland yard inspectors, to local Inn owners and Scottish highland dancers, they were unbeatable as a couple. Zak becomes all the deliciously plumpish ladies and Gélinas hidden under various hats, glasses and unexpected costumes, becomes all manner of hen pecked husbands or near raving mad professors. Or else both of them squeak, squawk, mumble and guffaw around the stage, appearing as tweedledee and tweedledum style detectives with the most hilarious parody of accents imaginable and an appearance of comic spontaneity which is what gave it a real punch. That couple could go on stage as the new Wayne and Shuster with the right material. A revelation in the making and a sign of the good things to come this season…
A perfect choice for the opening. Its energy, its sparkle, its eccentricity, its ticklish and edgy humour were all brought to life by the perfect team of the talented and sharp witted Kelly and his cast of willing collaborators. The 39 Steps plays at The Gladstone until September 24, call 613-233-4523 for tickets
Thirty-Nine Steps.
Adapted from the Hitchcock’s film by Patrick Barlow
From the novel by John Buchan
Original concept by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon
Directed by John P. Kelly
Set: John Doucet
Lighting: David Magladry
Sound: Al Connors
Costumes: Donna and Teri Loretto
CAST
Al Conors
Kate Smith
Zach Counsil
Richard Gélinas