★★★½
"39 Steps" climbs to wild comic heights
By Colin Dabkowski, News Arts Writer for The Buffalo News
A long time ago, before the invention of motorized set-pieces, mind-blowing pyrotechnics and the phenomenon known as the Disney musical, there was an often-used technique called “stagecraft.”
With the aid only of the director’s imagination and the odd prop, a gifted performer was able to suspend the disbelief of his audience so quickly and powerfully that they’d believe anything a playwright might have conjured up.
The ghost of Hamlet’s father appearing in full armor to demand revenge for his own murder? With good stagecraft, we totally buy it.
The beguiling magic of old-fashioned theatrical artifice — stagecraft, as it were—is on full display in an excellent production of the madcap comedy “The 39 Steps,” which opened Friday night in the Kavinoky Theatre.
About as campy as camp can be, the Kavinoky’s production features the varied talents of four actors in a dizzying array of roles, one director who has managed to keep them in smooth rotation and a quintet of designers whose work is at the heart of the show.
The story, such as it is, takes its inspiration directly from the 1935 film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock, which in turn is based on a 1915 spy novel by John Buchan. We meet Richard Hannay, a handsome and debonair Londoner with a pencil-thin mustache and a certain brand of imperious British masculinity. Before long, he finds himself wrapped up in a wacky plot involving a false murder accusation, a mad journey through the Scottish highlands and a series of absurdly unlikely love interests.
The plot, of course, is merely a theatrical coat rack on which to hang the machinations of the play, which involve any number of costume changes, accent changes, lighting changes, mood changes, prop changes and changes of fortune.
Hannay is played by the pitch-perfect Chris Corporandy, who so fully inhabits this suave Brit that he gives the late Robert Donat, Hitchcock’s choice for the character, a run for his money.
As a series of ad hoc femmes fatale, from a German woman with a ridiculous accent (“Zay must be shtopped!”) to a meek Scottish housewife, the gifted Jenn Stafford shines. The cast’s two “clowns,” as they are listed in the program, get manic gender-and mind-bending treatments from David Lundy and Robert Rutland. The duo constantly amuses as an eclectic assortment of characters, from corner-dwelling, fedora-wearing spies to the proprietors of a Scottish hotel.
Volumes of credit should go to the Kavinoky’s design team for the look it has created. David King’s set, ingenious in its simplicity, is a standout, as is excellent lighting design by Brian Cavanagh. Their work converges in a engrossing shadow-puppet scene (inspired by “North by Northwest,” among other Hitchcock films), and is augmented by Tom Makar’s appropriately campy sound design.
When the scrim drops, Dixon Reynolds’ seemingly endless trove of costumes and David Bova’s wigs become characters themselves, and provide Lundy, Rutland and Stafford with great jumping-off points for their shifting roles.
On opening night, the timing of some transitions and lines was not yet entirely on the nose, and this resulted in a few of the comic situations, especially as they involve Lundy and Rutland, missing the mark. But these are sure to resolve themselves as the performers get a few more shows under their belts.
The bones of the piece are healthy, and so is the stagecraft. “The 39 Steps” is a genuine team effort, bursting with imagination and overflowing with rewards.
9 Rockets (Out of Ten)
"The 39 Steps"
By Doug Smith for The Buffalo Rocket
“The 39 Steps” is a marathon of mystery and mirth at the Kavinoky Theater. There’s little good to be said of the closing of the Studio Arena, but were it still running, Buffalo audiences likely would have to cool their heels waiting to enjoy this delightfully exhausting adventure. The Kav is the first local troupe in the nation to risk the climb.
In one two-hour lap, “39 Steps” retraces, spoofs and honors the Alfred Hitchcock movie of 1935 (year of Rocket Man’s birth). Many cite it as the original accidental-detective flick. A handsome, well-traveled but rather bored socialite gets caught up in far-flung intrigue when a lovely woman of his recent acquaintance is inconveniently stabbed to death in his lap.
(Actress Jenn Stafford’s “holding that pose” while he removes the knife by maneuvering it like a slot machine is perhaps the greatest of all “Steps’” special effects.)
This propels him into a United Kingdom-wide odyssey in which he is both suspect and sleuth. Trade Mount Rushmore for Scotland’s Firth of Forth Bridge and you’ve got “North by Northwest” with bagpipes and a barnful of “cooos.” Some Hitchcock admirers say he spent much of his career designing remakes of “39 Steps.”
Four actors convey some 150 roles, often several in one scene in deft maneuvers involving nightshirts and hats. Speaking of “involved,” you have never heard the word pronounced as Stafford molds it here as “inWolved,” accented by prehensile eyebrows.
While the cast’s skill is exceeded only by their energy, special effects steal the show. Director David Lamb reportedly conducted five rehearsals dedicated to “tech” alone. Tom Makar’s music choices are perfect; they seem almost to have come as a package with the show.
Chris Corporandy plays the hero, a bit more James Mason than Cary Grant, a handsome smoothie in desperate circumstances. Stafford as the three “femmes fatale” – deadly dynamite. Billed as “Clowns” are Robert Rutland, Studio regular in better times, and David Lundy, weaving and costume-swapping through an insane succession of off-beat characters, sometimes as a married couple. Lundy is especially effective as “Mister Memory,” surprisingly essential to the plot, and when he dead-panned “I’m glad to get that off my mind,” Rocket Man nearly crashed and burned.
Movie conventions are fully honored, including “reversal shots” for doorway entrances. Other Hitchcock thrillers are referenced, but not “Psycho,” we don’t believe. He’d have loved it – in fact, we thought we saw him. “The 39 Steps” marches on through Dec. 6 at the Kavinoky Theater, where Rocket Man climbed 39 steps to the balcony, learning of the elevator later.