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.