BF39Steps

I thoroughly enjoyed watching “The 39 Steps”. The show was absolutely hysterical. The characters acted completely overdramatic for the purpose of comedy. There were characters with amusing accents like Annabella Schmidt whose accent was almost a cross between German and French it seemed; she switched all of her “v’s” and “w’s” and sounded very similar to Elmer Fudd but with a sensual, European way of speaking. There were many sexual innuendos, which probably were not in the original script that they wove into the story for comedic affect. One of my favorite innuendos was when our leading man and the woman he is handcuffed to are speaking to the innkeepers and the husband is asking if they were “cranking the car” with a rather suggestive hand motion, which they didn’t really understand how it went with the action he was referring to and assumed he meant literally cranking the car. Later, the innkeeper’s wife says the phrase “cranking the car” using the same weird hand motion but meant it in the suggestive way this time. Another joke I enjoyed was the use of repetition that would interrupt the characters. It was entertaining how the phone kept ringing in Mr. Hannay’s apartment. Whenever he got close enough in his slow exaggerated walk to the phone to answer it, it would stop ringing and he would go back to talking just to be interrupted by it starting to ring again and his walk to answer it would start over again.

The costume changes that occurred on stage were very well choreographed. The two characters known as the “clowns” in the playbill did a great job seamlessly switching from one character to another with their quick and minor dress changes. A great example of a scene with several of these on-stage costume changes is the scene on the train where the two “clowns” are traveling lingerie salesmen. Within just this scene one of the “clowns” transitions from a salesman to a paperboy by standing on his knees and changing his hat and voice after excusing his original character from that part of the scene, a well as briefly playing a woman with the use of a wig and cheesy flirtatious female voice. The other becomes both a police officer and the train conductor with a cleaver double-sided hat, which he turns around to switch characters. I feel that they were very successful in pulling it off and it added to the light-hearted mood of the play.

How the stage was set up and how the characters used the props made the props very versatile and helped make scene changes very fluid. They could move from one room to another by literally moving the door and they arranged the trunks, the chairs, a few ladders, a window, and a metal structure to suit the setting of the scenes, for example, in the train scene, they had the trunks set up to take the place of seats and ladders for windows. To give a sense of place, the actors pantomimed there being doors that lead into the different compartments in the train. Another example is the scene at the inn; the metal structure was used as a front desk with the addition of a plank for the counter, and a bed was created with the use of two trunks, which were put together with two chairs placed behind them and the addition of pillows and a blanket. Also, the 4th law was broken during scene changes; the people moving the props interacted with the actors. At one point one of the characters was struggling with an usher/prop mover who was taking the props away because she was not done with them yet. In a separate scene the 4th law was broken as our leading man Mr. Hannay is chased by a policeman through the audience.

They did a great job using music and light to set the scene since so few props were used. They used lights to mimic what it would be like to be climbing on the outside of a train by having a fast moving like continuously make its way from the front end of the imaginary train to the back as if they were passing lights on the sides of the tracks. To make it look like there was an airplane, they had a light with the shadow of fan blades moving to mimic the look of a propeller. They also used light and sound to show that there was a party going on, on the other side of a door in one scene; this required some tricky and precise sound and light cues to pull off. I liked that they used 1930’s music to continue with the time period theme and I thought it was funny that the theme song from Beetle juice was used during the scenes where the setting was meant to have a spooky feeling; the use of fog and green light also helped create an ominous mood. The director said after the show that he wanted to bring a film noir feel to the show and I feel like the lighting designer was successful in creating the long dark shadows that made the dramatic scenes as dramatic and dark as they were. In the scene where Mr. Hannay is giving a speech, they use the sounds of clapping and laughing to give a sense of place. I really liked how at Mr. Memories’ show they had the actual audience clap as if we were the audience attending the show with the characters watching in the balcony seats on stage.

I really liked the overall look of the costumes too; they were mostly period clothing from the 1930’s but I was told that the magician costume and Mr. Memory’s costume were inspired by a mixture of Vaudeville and Three-Ring Circus during an after-show session where we could talk with the actors and director. The costumes really made the character when it came to the two “clowns” with all of their costume changes throughout the play. They had a distinctive voice and stature that came with each of the characters they portrayed and when they switched characters in front of the audience, the differences between each personality really showed through and made it easy for us to visualize what it would be like if their were more than just the two actors on the stage playing the other parts. For example, the innkeepers fluidly switched back and forth into the trench coats and hats that the secret spies were wearing; they actually yelled at and kicked out the spies whom they were also playing. I also enjoyed the running joke of Mr. Hannay being tremendously attractive and how every woman played by Tressa Preston (Annabella Schmidt, Pamela the old Scotsman’s wife, and Margret whom he was handcuffed to) was attracted to him. Even the female announcer over the radio was falling for him as she repeated his description over the airways. It showed in how dreamily she spoke when defining his features; she even flat out said he was a very attractive man. I loved how Richard was constantly posing and had this look on his face like he knew he was good looking and egged on the advances of the women who were interested in him wherever he went.

When it comes to the actual storyline, I felt that it was more or less clear. It was kind of confusing because our lead character kept getting thrown into bizarre scenarios with unusual people making the plot kind of muddled among all of the strangeness. In the end we found out what the 39 steps were and the secret information that was talked about and that everyone was worried was being smuggled out of the country but they seemed barely important to the storyline. It was funny how important they made the 39 steps and the information seem with the dramatics in even mentioning the words “the 39 steps” for it to not have any meaning in the end. Also, the secret information was just a large equation, which I would have had to write down and look up to understand what it was or to understand if it was really just a joke. In the end, the basis for the adventure didn’t seem nearly as important as the adventure itself.