In(step) jokes
The
39 Steps could be the Melbourne Theatre Company's entry in
this year's Comedy Festival as a high energy spoof of John Buchan's
famous spy story of the same name. The version more spoofed here,
however, is Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 film version. Hitchcock's
script added the now famous, train sequences, the Music Hall performer
and fellow spy Mr 'Am I right Sir?' Memory (one of my favorite
movie characters) as well as some unrelieved sexual tension.
This take on a classic book and film is by Patrick
Barlow who acts, directs, produces and writes plays, his speciality
is improbable farce, the most famous of them until now a comedy
fable about Princess Diana. Barlow's adaptation is an elaborate
version of many a comedy sketch that spoofs a famous movie. Briefly
it concerns the tweedy but intrepid Robert Hannay (Marcus Graham)
who becomes involved with a mysterious woman after a trip to the
theatre. She is murdered in his flat and Hannay is thrown into
a whirlwind spy chase while trying to clear his name as the murderer.
Apart from being a lighthearted spoof it is done by only four
actors, one playing Hannay throughout, one as the mysterious woman
and then the love interest Pamela (Helen Christinson) with everyone
else taken by a couple of comics (Grant Piro and Tony Taylor).
Everything about the play is intended to suggest
the time the film was made, the period detail even extending into
the set. Played on a bare stage, with the back wall of the theatre
in view, set designer Peter McKintosh has created a red brick
wall like any inter-war theatre would have. A false proscenium
at front with stage boxes either side visually complements the
old-world charm of Barlow's play. The look and feel is one of
attending an impoverished repertory theatre in the English provinces
circa 1935. Barlow parodies that era of theatre as completely
as he parodies Buchan and Hitchcock. It helps if you know that
1935 film and it helps even more if you know it well. Hitchcock
buffs will also enjoy the visual references to his films and the
selection of Bernard Herrmann film scores. The play doesn't (and
simply can't) recreate the film scene by scene but there are some
however, like the scary moment when the Crofter notices his coat
and prayer book are missing, which replicate the film scene, coat
rack and all.
The first twenty-five minutes are just great but
there was a noticeable drop in the humour when scenes went on
longer than a few minutes. The earlier and famous Crofter's cottage
scene was one in particular (and why Piro was not allowed or encouraged
to impersonate the famous John Laurie (latterly of Dad's Army
fame and who memorably played the brooding crofter in the film).
Graham (who looks closer to Robert Powell in the
1978 remake than Robert Donat in the 1935 version) plays up the
silly ass English accent and takes all the spills and tumbles
without so much as crumpling his tweeds. Christinson turns the
mysterious woman into a Euro-pudding of accents, blending Marlene
'Dietwich' with Peppy la Pew. Playing the fey and antiquated stooge
Pamela is more of ask these days - these prim 'girl's own' ingenues
are a lost breed but she makes her the sort of brittle English
Rose that would attract a man like Hannay. Piro and Taylor are
constantly on the move (they will probably work off half their
body weight by the end the run) as the spies, police and sundry
Scots that Hannay encounters in his search for the 39 steps. Taylor
is great as the heavier of the villains (despite often resembling
Baldrick from the Black Adder series). His Musical Hall compare,
complete with mispronounced 'prilavage' the best of his many creations.
Piro, as Mr Memory in particular (always those two Music Hall
scenes! .. I need to see some new films), excels in playing weedy
little men. I need to confess too that I was a big fan of Couch
Potato.
My only objection were the moments, like the Flying
Scotsman train sequence, when the actors deliberately overdid
the physical comedy, overdoing the 'different hat = different
character' and turned it into self parody. Worse still when Graham
steps out of character and tells them to 'get on with it' the
elaborate make-believe was spoiled, particularly as that train
sequence was one of the best and most ingenious in the entire
play. The actual denouement, when the meaning of the 39 steps
is revealed is played quite straight, Mr Memory's pathetic little
death in the wings while the chorus girls dance and Hannay and
Pamela striking cod-heroic poses is one of the many fantastic
tableaux (spoiled by another moment of overkilling the different
hat=different person routine). Minor quibbles but otherwise a
great piece of parody and staged superbly.
Michael Magnusson
To read more of Michael Mangusson's theatre reviews,
check out his blog at
On Stage (and walls) Melbourne.
