Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 film, "The 39 Steps," is a broad adaptation of John Buchan's 1915 mystery-spy novel of the same title. Buckan's story follows a man on the run after he is falsely accused of murder. Hitchcock's screenwriter, Charles Bennett, retained the essence of Buchan's plot, the unjustified crime and the flight from London to Scotland and back, and he kept the name of the lead character, Richard Hannay. But the rest of the screenplay was based on the imagination of Bennett and Hitchcock who added plot twists and turns, new characters, and a very different meaning of "the 39 steps" for the film's dramatic close.

The best loved of Hitchcock's early British films and perhaps the most ideally suited for parody, "The 39 Steps" was the prototype for the director's many thrillers about the innocent man on the run. As the story goes, a bored Richard Hannay goes out for a night of theater and becomes entangled in a web of intrigue by a mysterious woman claiming to be a spy. When she winds up dead in his apartment, he is accused of murder. Panicked and now trapped in a world of danger and deception, he manages one narrow escape after another from the police and enemy agents while desperately trying to prove his innocence.

The 39 Steps was newly adapted for the stage by Patrick Barlow who is best known for his hilarious two-man national Theatre of Brent, which has become a legend in the British theatre, television and radio. The result is a surprisingly faithful, madcap version of the movie—a hilarious whodunit, part espionage thriller and part slapstick comedy that moves along at breakneck speed courtesy of director Maria Aitken.

"We almost do the film frame by frame," she explains. "Patrick's dialogue is at least 60 percent from the film. We've added more jokes and more reference to Hitchcock's other movies throughout."

All of the film's locations and action scenes somehow find their way onto the stage. With the minimum of resources plus some sophisticated sound and lighting effects, the play moves from a London music hall to the Scottish moors, taking in the Forth Bridge, a biplane flight, a chase on a train, a political rally and marching band.

"The whole point about the production is that it is an homage not only to the Hitchcock film but also to the theater itself," says Ms. Aitken. "It's done simply with smoke, four trunks, three ladders, four overworked and daring actors, and that's it."

Mic Pool and Ian Scott provide the impeccably timed, and sometimes intentionally ill-timed, sound and lighting effects. Toby Sedgewick created the original movement direction, keeping the action and the actors in overdrive. Shadow play is used to a great effect, particularly to enhance the highlands chase with planes, boats, trains, even the Loch Ness Monster on hand. It's pure theater magic.

"Something is made out of nothing or apparently nothing," insists Ms. Aitken. "Audiences love to be part of this experience. I look at the play in the English music hall tradition. Music is everywhere, under most of the action. Plus actors playing so many parts—changing parts and locations so fast—there's definitely a sort of a ballet going on there that audiences find exciting to watch."

As part of her creative vision, Ms. Aitken imagined a small repertory company during the 1950s in England where the leading man wants to play the Hannay character because he believes he'd be stellar in the heroic role played by the film's actor, British matinee idol Robert Donat.

"This leading man can only muster a leading lady if he gives her three parts to play. And there are two old annoying vaudevillians that are left over from some other production at that theatre. He tells them they have to play all the rest of the roles, all 150 of them, and play them straight. But they don't always behave like they are supposed to. This causes a lot of tension and conflict backstage and some of that tension and conflict spills out onto the stage during the telling of the story. Audiences love that."

The 39 Steps opened at London's Tricycle Theatre in 2006 and then transferred to the West End's Criterion Theatre winning the 2007 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy. Following a Boston tryout, the production opened on Broadway in January of 2008, winning two Tony Awards.

"When the show moved from London's intimate Tricycle Theatre to a much larger West End theatre and then to Broadway, the staging had to become more formalized," Ms. Aitken explains. "We added a few more jokes and more Hitchcock. We now had much more wing space so we expanded—to four trunks instead of three."

The show has been staged in Korea, Israel, Italy, Australia and a production will soon open in Japan. For each, Ms. Aitken has cast unfamiliar actors. "I think that's one of the reasons for the play's great success," she insists. "Watching someone you know from TV can distract from the story. It also adds to the play's longevity not to have to keep worrying about finding name actors who must also have unusually good movement skills. From the beginning, I realized that we can't do this with well known names. And on tour, playing in bigger theatres and because of the constant costume changes and fast actions, the actor's can't use body mikes so they must also have wonderful projection. You need trained theater artists and I'm thrilled with the actors we cast for the national tour."

The 39 Steps is a testament to ingenious theater techniques, to the magic of stage illusion, and how more can be done with less. Not to mention the appeal of a good spy thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat, until you teeter over with laughter.

For All About Alfred Hitchcock, click here. To read the Q and A with Director Maria Aitken, click here. To discover more about The 39 Steps, click here.

Back to SHNews