Theater review: The 39 Steps
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
Mark Garvin
The day after this uproarious production of Patrick Barlow’s adaptation of an Alfred Hitchcock movie closed at Theatre Horizon, star actor Damon Bonetti began directing the Tony Award-winner at Hedgerow. The venerable theater (beautiful to visit in summer) combines its loyal audience’s favorite genres — mystery and farce — in the story of hapless Canadian Richard (Matt Tallman), who befriends a mysterious woman who’s killed in his London flat. Richard flees, heading north with a single clue from the deceased to solve her murder and clear his name. Rebecca Jane Cureton plays three women in the adventure tale, while Joel Guerrero and Andrew Purcell — credited merely as “Clowns” — play more than 100 other roles, male and female, often doubling and tripling in one scene, with a plethora of U.K. accents and lightning-quick costume changes. The 39 Steps, with its many sly allusions to Hitchcock films, its surprising plot twists and its theater-set scenes, is a treat for lovers of Hitchcock films, mysteries and, of course, plays.
$15-$34 | Through Aug. 17, Hedgerow Theatre, 64 Rose Valley Rd., Rose Valley, Pa., 610-565-4211, hedgerowtheatre.org.
