Review: Georgetown Palace Theatre's The 39 Steps

(l-r) Eric Reeves, Morgan Urbanovsky, Bradley Billeaudeaux, and Hayden Smith in Georgetown Palace Theatre's The 39 Steps (Photo by Suzanne McBride)

The first taste of the winking and nodding to be found throughout Patrick Barlow's hilarious, parodic stage adaptation of the classic 1935 Alfred Hitchcock spy film The 39 Steps (based in turn on the genre-defining 1915 novel by John Buchan) comes in the very first scene. A dashing, bored, and period-perfect Brit named Richard Hannay seeks "something mindless and trivial, something utterly pointless" to amuse himself. So he goes to the theatre.

Once there, the intricate and implausible plot unfolds. Hannay inadvertently gets mixed up with double agents, accidentally uncovers a German plot to steal vital British military secrets, gets framed for murdering a young woman, and, of course, takes it on the lam from London to the remote Scottish Highlands by foot, car, and the Flying Scotsman train.

Audiences also seeking something mindless will find it in Georgetown Palace Theatre's thoroughly entertaining production of this 2008 Tony Award-winning play. The 39 Steps is a romp from beginning to end, playing for laughs all that is film noir in Hitchcock's movie, including its low-budget aesthetics, gentlemanly hero and mysterious femme fatale, dark and misty ambience, unforeseen double crosses, and abrupt twists and turns. Cinematic cliches, cloak-and-dagger genre conventions, and Hitchcockian quirks are all fodder for this play.

Some knowledge of Hitchcock's signature style is a plus, but The 39 Steps is great fun even without this insight, for its antics are clever in their own right and are performed with balls-to-the-wall energy by Eric Reeves as our square-jawed and thin-mustached hero, Morgan Urbanovsky as all of the female protagonists, and Bradley Billeaudeaux and Hayden Smith as, well, everyone else.

As Hannay, Reeves captures every aspect of the archetypical good guy sucked into a foul situation. His clipped diction, perpetually cocked eyebrow, and cavalier approach to danger are spot-on. Urbanovsky's portrayal of dialectically opposed and dialogically diverse women – from a Mata Hari to an innocent love interest to a Scottish farm girl – are delivered with wonderful, overly dramatic flair. And doing the heavy lifting in this production, often quite literally, are Billeaudeaux and Smith, who serve as human sight gags and set-change laborers. These actors have been given a herculean task and much of their success is getting the audience to appreciate their efforts. Which they do.

Speed is also essential when staging this play. Lines must come with rapid delivery. Costumes (designed by Emily Taylor) must zip on and off. Props and set-pieces (courtesy of Abigail Rubin and Chase Staggs, respectively) must rush in and out. And the timing of lighting and sound cues (designed by Becca Kehl and Aaren Horak, respectively) is crucial in the making of good parody. Director Keyshaan Castle's greatest achievement is maintaining that breathless pace and essential timing.

Not everything works in this production (much of the shadow puppetry falls flat) and a few higher-risk comedic opportunities found in the Broadway production and elsewhere (such as the pantomime antics performed on top of a moving train) are not to be found here. Still, there is plenty of creativity and loads of laughs to warrant a trip up north to see this show.

Georgetown Palace Theatre's The 39 Steps