[NEohioPAL] Review of "The 39 Steps" at CPH

[Bob Abelman]

'The 39 Steps' takes flight at CPH

Bob Abelman

News-Herald, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times, Geauga Times Courier

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review appeared in the News-Herald on 10/1/10

 

Theater has the potential to create a conscience in self-absorbed audiences sheltered from the hardship of others.   Theater can inspire social revolution, propagate political upheaval and call into question religious dogma. Theater can change the world.

 

Thankfully The 39 Steps, in production at the Cleveland Play House, does none of these things.  

 

The 39 Steps is dessert before dinner-an indulgent, theatrical extravagance that is more likely to create brain-freeze and sugar-shock than anything as lofty as thoughtful reflection.  And, like a good sweet in advance of an entree, it is likely to spoil your appetite for anything more substantive, at least for a while.

 

Patrick Barlow's aerobic stage adaptation of the classic, 1935 Alfred Hitchcock spy movie is silly, silly stuff.   It is a romp from beginning to end-a parody of film noir romantic thrillers with their low budget aesthetics, gentlemanly heroes with mysterious femme fatales, prototypical blondes, dark and misty ambiance, and abrupt twists and turns.

 

Every cinematic cliché, every cloak-and-dagger genre convention and every Hitchcockian quirk is accentuated in this hilarious production, so much so that the self-aware characters who populate it flinch upon hearing their own sound effects.  

 

The storyline-such that it is-follows the adventures of dashing Richard Hannay as he inadvertently gets mixed up with double agents, accidently uncovers a plot to steal vital British military secrets, gets framed for murder and, of course, takes it on the lam.  

 

As with all good parodies, The 39 Steps and the Cleveland Play House production of it establishes its bad intentions from the get-go.  Linda Buchanan's set design, with its stagey vaudevillian music hall accents that frame the proscenium, bare stage and plain brick wall at the rear, leaves no doubt that something nonsensical this way cometh.  Director Peter Amster even opens the play with a bit of old fashioned inanity that has his performers setting the stage literally and, by establishing the comic tone for the evening, figuratively.

 

As if that is not sufficient notification that a parody is in our midst, we meet our hero as he laments the tedium of the world, what with its war and all, and expresses his desire to do something totally "mindless, pointless and trivial."  So, he goes to the theater.  

 

Of course, parody is not completely mindless.  In fact, parody requires its audience to pay close attention and have some degree of understanding of its target in order to be really in on the fun.  Knowledge of film is certainly an asset for this particular production, as the players brilliantly transform everyday objects into Objets d'art and artifice reflective of Hitchcock's signature psychological thrillers.  

 

Still, The 39 Steps is great fun even without much foresight.   Director Amster employs the same quick pace and precise timing that made his Play House productions of Emma and Pride and Prejudice so accessible and appealing.  Of course, "The 39 Steps" is set at a completely different speed, and while Jane Austen's work is all about the words, The 39 Steps  is all about the antics that are triggered by them.

 

Those antics are performed brilliantly by Nick Sandys as our square jawed and thin-mustached hero Richard Hannay, Sarah Nealis as all of the female prototypes found in film noir storytelling, and Rob Johansen and Joe Foust as everyone else.   

 

As our hero, Sandys captures every aspect of the archetypical good guy sucked into a foul situation.  His clipped diction, perpetually cocked eyebrow and cavalier approach to danger are spot on and the physicality he brings to the role-particularly during chase scenes that really go nowhere-is a delight to watch.  

 

Nealis' depictions of dialectically opposed and dialogically diverse characters, from a Mata Hari, to a love interest, to a farm girl-all done with overly dramatic flair for comedic effect-are superb. That she played the title role in Emma in last year's production speaks volumes about Nealis' breadth and scope as a performer.

 

Doing the heavy lifting in this production, Johansen and Foust wear multiple hats, with one hat miraculously appearing mere seconds after another, accompanied by complete and hilarious characterizations.  They engage in a finely tuned and highly entertaining bit of bait and switch clownery.  The two are also employed as human sight gags throughout the production, which they handle brilliantly.

 

All of this is facilitated by creative lighting and sound, designed by Michael Lincoln and Victoria Delorio, respectively.  Indeed, the quality, cleverness and timing of the lighting and sound are as instrumental in the manifestation of parody as anything the four performers bring to the stage.  And in this production of The 39 Steps, they all work in perfect harmony to generate the illusion of utter chaos.

 

Leave your social conscience at the door for this one.  There is no agenda here save escapism with a double scoop of good old fashioned absurdity.

 

The 39 Steps continues through October 10 in The Cleveland Play House's Drury Theatre, 8500 Euclid Avenue in Cleveland.  For tickets, which range from $46 to $66, call 216-795-7000 or visit www.clevelandplayhouse.com.
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