Don’t Miss The 39 Steps!!!

Don’t miss the 39 Steps! It plays this weekend at the Terrific New Theatre (TNT) at the Pepper Place – 2821 Second Avenue South – or call 205-328-0868. Through October 6 only!

First of all, this is a wonderful and delightful piece of drama and well worth any re-arrangements you have to make to take this hour and a half out of your schedule to be here!

Most people know the 39 steps as Hitchcock’s film, though it is based on a novel by John Buchan, Scottish novelist, historian and politician, and Patrick Barlow, the English actor, and Carl Stewart, the director, as well as Eric Reid-St. John, Talia Pepke, Nick Crawford and Corey Fall also had a large hand in the outcome. Not to be forgotten are the genuinely creative set design of Mandy Thomas, lighting design of D. Connor McVey and sound design of Nick Jones.

One of the delightful aspects of this play is the way it plays off of the film and of Hitchcock’s films and of film in general. The dialogue is as rapid-fire as the gun-fire, and a living room, a hotel, windows, doors, a bed, a fireplace, fire, a car, a train, a railroad station, an airplane, a party, dancing, sheep, public events, a magic show and a political grandstand and multiple other fixtures of daily life appear and disappear as by magic, as if on film. The music and sound effects are also filmic. Sound seems to create romance, and when the sound changes the romance ends, and the couple starts to quarrel – in all too familiar patterns. Sound and a couple of skillfully designed shadows create a party – and when the shadows disappear, and the sound cuts off – there goes the dancing!

Meanwhile, the acting is wonderful. You might have noticed that there were only four actors, and while Eric Reid-St.John plays the hero, Richard Hannay, and Talia Pepke plays the women he encounters, Nick Crawford and Corey Fall are not only Clown # 1 and Clown # 2, they are policemen (or fake policemen), ordinary citizens, Scottish hotel owners, a fascist in hiding and his wife, not to speak of Mr. Memory and the Maitre D’… These guys are great, with their multiple accents, their rapid-fire 30’s film dialogue, their buffoonery and their wonderful takes on character.

By all means go to see it this weekend before it disappears like magic!