Vertigo Takes The 39 Steps to Hitchcockian Comedy

CALGARY HERALD ^ | NOVEMBER 20, 2010 | STEPHEN HUNT

[nickcarraway]

Small cast has big fun with classic suspense story

Between the two of them, Andy Curtis and Christopher Hunt play 100 different characters in The 39 Steps.

That's the title of both the 1935 film classic by Alfred Hitchcock and the latest production at the Vertigo Theatre.

While the 1935 version of The 39 Steps goes mostly for straight suspense, the Vertigo production is a comic thriller that literally performs the film -- every scene and every character -- using four actors and minimal sets.

Somewhere along the way, The 39 Steps transformed from Hitchcockian thriller to something very silly.

How, director (and Vertigo artistic director) Mark Bellamy is asked, is it possible for two guys to play 100 different parts in a single show?

"A lot of hats," Bellamy says. "Honestly, there's one scene that's all about hats."

The 39 Steps is actually one of the earliest action thrillers that have become a staple of our present day multiplex, movie-going experience: the story of an ordinary man on the run.

Before James Bond, or The Saint, before Indiana Jones, there was Richard Hannay, the protagonist of The 39 Steps.

As Bellamy tells it, Hannay is an ordinary man who gets caught up in extraordinary circumstances.

"He's an Everyman who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time," Bellamy says, "and gets involved with this beautiful, mysterious woman who's a spy, (who) then gets him involved in her whole world of intrigue -- and it just keeps snowballing."

It's all a theatrical homage to Hitchcock, the original master of suspense.

In the live production of The 39 Steps, Hitch lovers will be rewarded with inside references to some of his best-known films.

"It's the exact plot of the movie, and we've even managed to work in the famous Alfred Hitchcock cameo," Bellamy says. "I'm not going to tell you how. And there are references to many other Alfred Hitchcock films -- North by Northwest, The Birds, Strangers on a Train, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Rear Window and Vertigo, oddly enough."

The play, which was first produced in Britain by the Tricycle Theatre, also is decidedly minimalist in its sets and production values. There's a kind of fringe theatre quality that's built into it that is quite the opposite of your garden variety, elaborately-designed Agatha Christie murder mystery.

That kind of DIY-mystery feeling is all part of the comedy of staging what is essentially an impossibly unwieldy story.

Much the way he found an exquisite combination of comedy and suspense with last year's Betty Award-winning Evelyn Strange, Bellamy hopes to do it again with The 39 Steps.

"It's (comic mysteries) something I always look for," Bellamy says, "but I tell you, in this genre, they're so hard to find, especially ones that are really good, and really well-written.

"There are a lot of people who have written bad comedic murder mysteries -- there's a lot -- so when you find some (such as Evelyn Strange and The 39 Steps) that are well written, it's just a joy to do them."

What gives Bellamy confidence that Calgary audiences will embrace The 39 Steps is the fact that he has snagged a cast (Hunt, Curtis, Adrienne Smook and John Ullyatt) he considers up to the task of interpreting this particular script.

"You need four actors who are physical virtuosos, and quick-change artists," Bellamy says. "They're perfect. I can't imagine doing the show without performers of that calibre, because you need that kind of virtuosity and you need just the skill they have, but also the confidence and expertise they have. These are all great, seasoned pros who know what they're doing. They know how to get in front of an audience and take this material and just make it fly."

And finally: WWHT? (What would Hitch think?)

"I would think he'd like it," Bellamy says. "I think Alfred Hitchcock had a great sense of humour.

"There are moments in the film . . . that are really funny," Bellamy adds. "I think he'd be happy (with our play). He'd be quite pleased."

[RedStateRocker]

Saw the stage play in London last year.
Incredible what 4 actors and a few effects could accomplish. Brilliant.