39 Steps is Mysterious Hilarity

By John Farrell

Any way you look at it, The 39 Steps is a big production.

Alfred Hitchcock made the film — one of his best — in 1936. It involved everything from the Firth of Forth Bridge (a Scottish landmark) to the London Palladium.

As a play it is still huge: there are only four actors, and one plays only one role, but as for the others … there are more than one hundred lightning quick costumes changes. (The count is 100, or 120, or 139. Nobody seems to agree.)

At the Long Beach Playhouse’s mainstage, it is even a bit more complicated, since that theater has a stage in which the audience sits on three sides of the action. So, when the Playhouse announced that it was going to present The 39 Steps as the opening performance of their 86^thseason in Long Beach, it raised a question: How would the play be adapted to the theater’s thrust stage, with the action and the stage tricks 10 feet away?

Director Dale Jones had to solve those problems.

He had to figure out how to get from London to Scotland and back again convincingly, or at least comically, on what could be an awkward space. Rather than limiting his options, he expanded them with chase scenes run through and around the audience, with delightful comic moments played as close to the audience as possible and with the brilliant assistance of his four co-conspirators. These are comprised of Jeremy Bear, as the unflappable Richard Hannay, Madeleine Heil, as Margaret, Pamela and Annabella, and the two clowns (that’s in the program. It is not a disparagement) who do most of the heavy lifting, Mark Davidson and Michael Chiboucas.

The story begins in London, where Hannay has recently moved from Canada. He is bored. But soon he is running for his life, with a secret from a dying woman named Annabella about something called, “The 39 Steps,” and a murder charge against him. His only clues leading him to Scotland. Bear is the perfect English gentleman, of course, with his pipe and size 36 suit, his blazing blue eyes (a minor plot point) and the British (but French named) sang-froid that lets him keep his cool even when he is shot. (He survives, of course, or there would be no second act.)

Heil is perfectly alluring as Annabella, the soon-to-be-murdered international agent and remarkably charming as Margaret, the wife of a Scots farmer, but she is best as Pamela, the woman who Hannay has handcuffed to him for a good part of the second act. She plays tough, but she can be friendly, too, and never descends into hysterics (a perfect example of the Hitchcock blond, which he invented in the film of The 39 Steps. And, she interacts with the audience in a way that is never seen on a regular stage, getting help from the audience when she can’t get her stocking down, drying in front of a movie-screen fire.

The two clowns are delightful. Davidson is the tall one, and his very thick Scots (and at time un-understandable) accent is hilarious. Chiboucas is the short one, and his face has a fright wig. His performance as Mr. Memory is unforgettable. Together, they portray everything from a hotel-keeper and his wife to the mysterious professor and his wife (it helps to be short). They manage all the set changes, from the train car to the attack with an airplane, with speed and comic dexterity.

Jones uses a movie screen to keep things running smoothly, with film clips and music provided, along with Hitchcock’s distinctive voice, which is provided by Scott Rattner. While you don’t have to be a Hitchcock fan to appreciate the play, if you are a fan, you’ll notice not too subtle references to other films (“Rear Window” is just one) along the way.

Hitchcock fan or not, you’ll enjoy every minute of “The 39 Steps,” one delightful laugh after another.

Tickets are $24, $21 for seniors, and $14 for students. Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., and at 2 p.m. Sundays, through Oct.25.

Details: (562)494-1014; www.lbplayhouse.org
Venue: Long Beach Playhouse Mainstage Theater
Location: 5021 E. Anaheim, Long Beach