VERTIGO STEPS OUT IN STYLE WITH MADCAP THRILLER
Frenetic action and bags of tricks make for a perfect holiday crowd-pleaser
Sustained howls of appreciation and a standing ovation are the surest sign of audience appreciation and the Vertigo crowd delivered that in spades for The 39 Steps.
Artistic director Craig Hall is right on the mark when he says it’s ideal programming for the holiday season. It’s light, fast and funny. There’s a mystery at the heart of the show but that’s hardly what makes it so much fun. It’s pure slapstick tomfoolery, and Ron Jenkins’ version that’s playing at Vertigo until Dec. 16, reaches the heights of inspired lunacy.
Vertigo’s The 39 Steps is based on John Buchan’s 1915 novel with constant nods to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 film version.
It’s the story of a Canadian, Richard Hannay, in his lonely, dreary, London apartment. Bored silly, he goes to the theatre to see a vaudeville show featuring a famous mentalist whose head is crammed full of facts.
At the theatre, Hannay is accosted by a beautiful, mysterious European woman who begs him to take her home.
Things are looking up for Hannay except that his new flatmate is dead by morning — but not before she has told him there is a German plot to steal a vital secret formula. She mutters something about 39 steps, gives him a map with a location in Scotland and points him to a spy missing the tip of his smallest finger.
Next morning, in disguise as a milkman, Hannay is off to stop a dastardly plot without really knowing what it’s all about.
There are several gimmicks at work in Buchan’s script — the most important being that four actors play all the characters in this complicated spy thriller. Actually, make that three actors because Tyrell Crews plays only Hannay.
Anna Cummer plays the three women who figure prominently in Hannay’s quest, including the dark-haired spy, Annabella; Pamela, the quintessential Hitchcock blond bombshell; and Margaret, a wee, red-headed Scottish lass up in the Highlands.
That leaves Ron Pederson and Andy Curtis to play every other character in the story.
Things get particularly wild and woolly when, during an early train sequence, Pederson and Curtis have to play a pair of women’s undergarment salesmen, two cops plus the train conductor and a paper boy, essentially at the same time. This means changing hats and personas with split-second timing.
The second instance of such pandemonium occurs in the second act at a Scottish bed and breakfast when Curtis and Pederson have to play the landlord and his wife plus a pair of spies.
Gimmick No. 2 is that the set consists of just a few pieces of furniture, some trunks that have to be as versatile as Pederson and Curtis, a ladder and some chairs. We get to see these set pieces being pulled and pushed on and offstage by the actors.
The third gimmick, at least in this production, is Hannay as played by Crews.
Not only does Crews gets to spoof his own matinee idol good looks, but he also gets to be a kind of onlooker at all the bedlam. There are times when Crews glances at the audience as if to ask if what we just saw happen really did happen.
This kind of shared disbelief or disdain makes Hannay so much more than just a straight man to three wonderful, talented
clowns. For me, Crews was to Cummer, Pederson and Curtis as George Burns was to Gracie Allen.
There is a great bit early on when Curtis and Pederson play spies stalking Hannay’s apartment. Whenever he looks out his window, Curtis and Pederson rush on with a lamp post.
It’s hilarious shtick, but Crews gets his own laugh when he tricks them by going to the window but not opening the blind, letting the audience know that he knows who’s in charge of the shtick.
Another gimmick is the way Barlow brings in all the Hitchcock references, including the famous cameo the director always included. Watch for references to the titles of such Hitchcock films as North by Northwest, Vertigo, The Man Who Knew Too Much and Strangers on a Train.
Watch also for the brief appearances of the Loch Ness Monster and King Kong.
Deitra Kalyn deserves a huge pat on the back for her costumes and wigs. I still don’t know how Pederson got in and out of that outfit for the spy’s wife in record time or how Curtis managed the landlady’s garb.
Narda McCarroll seems to be having as much fun with the lighting as Peter Moller is with all his sound effects and original music.
It’s impossible to heap enough praise on Cummer, Curtis and Pederson, but what impressed me most is how they make it seem so easy and spontaneous when it is anything but.
Everyone at Vertigo has tongues firmly planted in their cheeks as is evidenced by the numbering on the stairs leading up to the two landings at Vertigo.
My only real quibble with The 39 Steps is that it overstays its welcome and that is not the fault of anyone with Vertigo. As a friend suggested, this is a play that should have been 90 minutes with no intermission. It’s so difficult, even with the talent unleashed at Vertigo, to make the second act seem as fresh, frenetic and flippant as the first.
This show is one big bag of tricks and most of them are used up in the first hour. Then again, it didn’t seem to bother the audience on the review night. The crowd seemed to be as raucous after the intermission as it had been before.