Alfred Hitchock''s The 39 Steps, now on Broadway, is a great way to start the new year. Adapted (or rather deconstructed and reconstructed) by Patrick Barlow from the film, brilliantly directed with impeccable timing and grand innovation by Maria Aitken, this is a stylized melodrama played seriously by a team of master farceurs. Each of the four cast members, except for Charles Edwards, the innocent drawn into a web of spying and deceit, plays a multitude of characters, changing costume, accent, physicality and voice in split seconds as danger pursues our blameless protagonist, and the saga unfolds.
There are great comic touches in the magical, flexible set design and costumes by Peter McKintosh, perfect lighting by Kevin Adams and sound design by Mic Pool. The performances are all award level, with two "clowns," Arnie Burton in fast-changing costume and attitude, and the amazing Cliff Saunders, who, as well as doing a multitude of clearly-defined characters that are so real that they are comic, bravely performs the nearly impossible straight back fall. Twice. I have never in my life seen anyone except the great comedian George Hopkins perform this feat. Not even the Chinese acrobats or Cirque de Soleil gymnasts. All hail movement creators Toby Sedgwick and Christopher Bayes. The requisite beautiful girl -- victim, conspirator, innocent- is faultlessly played by the beautiful, vivacious, talented Jennifer Ferrin. I hereby nominate these four extraordinary performers for "Best Ensemble."
