AM39Steps

The night before I went in to see the play 39 Steps, my roommates and I had decided to stay up the whole night studying and baking cheesecakes. Due to my grumpy, sleep deprived nature I had all but decided on hating the play regardless of its positive qualities; however, I openly and gladly admit that the production won me over. The clever set up of the stage and the hilarious actors of the play kept me interested, entertained, and laughing throughout the entire thing.

The play opened on the debonair, protagonist Richard Hannay played by Edward McCreary. At first I literally slapped my forehead at hearing the poorly mimicked British accent, but eventually I found the exaggeration of accents by all the actors only added to the charm of the play. Richard Hannay was almost like a mix of James Bond and Indiana Jones; winning the hearts of women along his journey, becoming more handsome the more frayed he became, and never losing his hat along the way. As a sometimes pompous, but still honest character the role was perfect for the play, but the character was difficult to like sometimes because of his cheesy jokes and overly suave tendencies.

The role of the females that Hannay tended to leave stranded in his wake was played by Tressa Preston. Her dramatic accents held true to the play’s hyperbolic core, but some of the word pronunciations seemed questionable. When she was playing Annabella Schmidt her Russian accent where she mispronounced W’s and R’s was fitting, but when she was playing the farmer’s wife her accent at times seemed to slip into a Jamaican accent and was a bit off simply because that could not have been her intention. Many of the roles she was made to play just seemed annoying as characters, but she played them well. The English character Pamela was very prim and complained immensely about her situation, but the professionalism of the actress, Tressa Preston, herself was impressive. I cannot be certain if this incident was planned or not, but at one point “Pamela” ran into the front chair of the supposed “car” and knocked off the flashlight “headlight.” It appeared to be an accident, but she covered it so well that I still cannot be sure. I was almost expecting to hear her break character at that point, but instead she recovered quickly by dramatically adlibbing “oh no the car!” to which the audience responded with uproarious laughter since they too were probably confused as to whether or not this was accidental.

The two comedians of the play, Ryan Lamotte and Adam Eiddler, in my eyes, could do no wrong. Everything, and I mean absolutely everything, they did seemed perfect to me. They played everything from the villains, to police, to boys, to old men, to women, and the combination of their hilarious accents, their well coordinated body gags, their quick costume changes, and their complete dedication to the numerous roles is what really made the play amazing. If those two students had not been cast in this play, I think I can truthfully say that I would not have enjoyed the play as much as I did. When the two comedians and Hannay were in the train together and stood up and stepped over one another to let one out it really did remind me of the cramped quarters of train transportation I have experienced. That scene was excellent because the amount of movement and jostling it took to let a person out escalated after each time. Eventually one person was jumping on top of the “chairs” and almost rolling on top of another. This exaggeration of the space available and their constant polite mumbling of “excuse me, pardon me” was a great addition to the play. Though both actors had fantastic character moments, I must mention when Ryan Lamotte came out as the old man during the political campaign scene. With his squinted eyes, constantly trembling lips, earthquake-like wobbling when attempting to sit, and his inability to comprehend his surroundings, I thought I would fall out of my chair from laughing. There really is nothing negative I can think of to say about the performances of Ryan Lamotte and Adam Eiddler.

The costume changes that were done deliberately in front of the audience were very well coordinated and planned. The switch in the boarding inn where the fake police man changed into the inn wife, and then the husband back into a policeman was unexpected and simply genius. Because I was in the front row, when Professor Jordan came out I could not understand why he did not wipe the sweat from his upper lip, but then he pulled off his square goatee and stuck it under his lip as a mustache. It was, in a word, hilarious-especially since he stuck his Hitler mustache on crooked. Yet another well done “switcheroo” was the switch between the stage hand playing Professor Jordan and the original Professor Jordan who busy being the magician and introducing Mr. Memory. The stage hand bent down in the theatre observing booth and then real Professor (Adam Eiddler) stood up and pulled off the “mask” that he had been wearing. The success in these changes was that they were so deliberate and well thought out that the audience could not help but appreciate the time that went into coordinating and planning these changes.

The music itself, sound effects, and lighting were similar to the rest of the play and only added to the production’s overall theme: they were hyperbolized in nature and used to mock the drama of the original Alfred Hitchcock film. An example is when Professor Jordan and his wife were laughing evilly and the music burst out with a cacophony of menacing chords while the lights changed to a deep red. When the “39 Steps” were mentioned at all in the beginning there would be a dramatic lighting change, several ominous notes played, and three static, dramatic poses that the characters would adopt. When Richard Hannay and the farmer’s wife- who had clear sexual attraction to one another- were having a light discussion, the romantic music swelled so loudly that the actors had to yell over it to be heard. The music then cut abruptly as the wife was yelling, and the audience responded with laughter as planned.

Especially since I am aware of the previous financial situation of the theatre department, I was very impressed with the scenery/ background. The set up of the moving parts of the stage was very cleverly done and one of the main reasons I enjoyed the play so much. The moving door and window made it so that the actors could “enter” and “leave” a number of different rooms all within the same scene. The most memorable scene was when the professor’s wife was showing Hannay in to see the Professor, and they went through several “rooms,” an elevator, and even a flight of stairs. The amount of time and the number of different methods that it took for them to cross the small stage because they were going through such a “large” house was brilliantly done. Yet another funny moment involving the moving surroundings was when the farmer’s wife told Hannay to run from the police “out the window.” He went to go out the back window and she said “no!” and proceeded to move the back window so that it was facing the audience and said “the real window!” A small but notable addition to the moving parts of the play was the two stage hands that moved them. When the two side characters that moved around the props on the stage they made small acknowledgements to the crowd such as the female kicking up her leg after moving a door, and the male waving to the audience after stepping through a door he had moved in a way to steal a moment, it was actually quite charming. Another cleverly done scene that did not include moving furniture was when Richard was being chased by a plane and he came back out with a plane attached to his hat by a long, flexible rod. The plane on his hat that was “chasing him” as he ran in slow motion and eventually crashed into the ground; this small event had the entire audience laughing hysterically. You would think I might run out of examples of how great the integration of the props into the play was, but of the several I will only mention one more. The scene when Hannay and the police jumped out onto the outside of the train which was made of steel frames was funny, but also required skill from the actors. At one point I noticed it seemed the trunk was just out of reach of Edward’s foot and became concerned, but he managed to make it.

I have praised the play over and over, but there are a few things that seemed flawed. The several allusions to Alfred Hitchcock films were quite funny, however the lines themselves were delivered like a bad punch line and seemed a bit heavy handed at times. Although, to be fair, had they not been delivered in this fashion I probably would only have recognized two or three of the Hitchcock title references. Another quibble I have is that several times actors would repeat a dramatic moment to be funny, but it became tiresome. Though the repetitive dramatic moments were very hilarious at times such as when Annabella continued to speak ominously long after her death, at a few points in the play they were drawn on too long. I understand the play is meant to mock the melodrama of the movie by drawing out these moments, but at some points I found myself hoping for the repetitive scene to end and wound up rolling my eyes each time it started up again. The “goodbye” scene between Hannay and Pamela where the two kept saying goodbye and then running back together again in the hopes one would say something is the example most foremost in my memory. My aversion to this repeating of moments/lines may be because the television series Family Guy does this so often that it has almost become a cliché.

The flaws that I could find in this play pale in comparison to its outstanding merits. Every aspect of the play seemed to fit so perfectly together to fully realize the uproarious parody of 39 Steps. The delightful actors and novel stage set up were most prominent in their contribution to the play, but the music, lighting, costumes, and makeup all contributed. I am almost afraid that this production was so good that everything afterwards will be disappointing, but regardless of that I look forward to viewing the next theatre production.