Richard Hannay is on the run again in Patrick Barlow’s masterful four-actor comedic adaptation of John Buchan’s The 39 Steps, as supremely imaginative an evening of theater as you’re likely to experience any time soon.

Eric Wentz stars for International City Theatre as debonair hero-on-the-run Hannay, fleeing enemy spies from London to Edinburgh to the Scottish moors and back … and crossing paths with a hundred fifty or so characters along the way.

Unlike the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock film adaptation of the Buchan classic, however, it takes adapter Barlow just three featured players to bring all these supporting roles to life while recreating iconic action sequences at the teensiest fraction of a Hollywood budget.

 Ashley Morton costars as mysterious foreign brunette Annabella Schmidt, whose murder sends Richard on a cross-country trek; as icy blonde Pamela, the stranger on a train Hannay ends up handcuffed to as enemy spies pursue them across Scotland; and as Margaret, the frisky young wife of a country farmer at least twice her age.

Meanwhile Louis Lotorto’s Man #1 and Bo Foxworth’s Man #2 pop in and out as everybody else, from vaudeville performer Mr. Memory to a helpful milkman to a Cockney charlady to a pair of lingerie salesmen to a police officer duo to a train porter to a paperboy to a Scottish farmer to a pair of pilots to a seemingly respectable but secretly villainous professor and his buxom wife.

 Director Jamie Torcellini’s two previous outings helming The 39 Steps make him the perfect choice to recreate classic action sequences with only tables and chairs and boxes and ladders and oodles of imagination, as when Hannay leaps out of a train, inches his way along its outside, then leaps from carriage to carriage, a pair of policemen pursuing him with relentless determination.

There’s also Richard being chased across the Scottish moors by a single-engine Tiger Moth (a shadow-puppet sequence that pays tribute to both Hitchcock’s North By Northwest and to the distinctively-profiled Master Of Suspense himself) as our handcuff-linked hero and heroine find themselves stymied again and again in their efforts to elude their pursuers in a journey that takes them from Richard’s flat to a London music hall to an Edinburgh train to the Forth Bridge to the Scottish moors to a sheriff’s office to an assembly hall to a country inn and finally to the London Palladium.

 Hitchcock fans will relish the production’s many witty references to Vertigo, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and North By Northwest as Torcellini and company serve up one outrageous sight gag after another with movable lampposts, a handheld window frame, an oversize map of Scotland, rubber fish, and a steering wheel (kudos to properties designers Patty and Gordon Briles), along with physical comedy galore. (Just wait till you see how Richard escapes from a corpse lying prone on his lap.)

With his oft-described “wavy hair, piercing blue eyes, and very attractive pencil moustache,” GQ-handsome Wentz makes for a picture-perfect Hannay while displaying a droll comedic flair matched by recent USC grad Morton’s delicious trio of damsels in various accents and states of distress.

 As for Foxworth and Lotorto, performances don’t get more tour-de-force than these two L.A. theater superstars’ mastery of quick changes, comedy shtick, and split-second back-and-forth transformations with nothing but a change of hat.

Kim DeShazo scores high marks for costumes donned and doffed and donned again in record time on Fred Kinney’s versatile musical hall set, with Stacy McKenney Norr’s expert lighting, Anthony Gagliardi’s multiple period wigs, and sound designer Dave Mickey’s terrific mix of recognizable Hitchcock themes and sound gags completing a Grade-A production design. (Cast members deserve their own kudos for some vocalized Foley effects.)

 The 39 Steps is produced by ICT artistic director caryn desai. JR Norman Luker is associate scenic designer. Donna R. Parsons is production stage manager and Denise Kha is assistant stage manager.

Casting is by Michael Donovan, CSA. Richie Ferris, CSA, is casting associate.

Like International City Theatre’s Around The World In 80 Days and Shipwrecked before it, The 39 Steps demonstrates how much can be achieved with a few gifted actors, inspired direction, and ingenious design. Hollywood could easily spend over a hundred mil and not surpass the entertainment value of what’s on stage at ICT.

International City Theatre, Long Beach Performing Arts Center, 300 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach.
www.InternationalCityTheatre.org

–Steven Stanley
June 22, 2018
Photos: Tracey Roman

Tags: Alfred Hitchcock, International City Theatre, John Buchan, Los Angeles Theater Review, Patrick Barlow