The 39 Steps

Many thanks to Preston College’s The Actors Academy for inviting me along to see their production of Patrick Barlow's adaption of John Buchan's The 39 Steps, which was performed in the college's outdoor amphitheatre on Thursday 24th May 2023. The piece, normally performed by 4 actors multirole playing, was undertaken as a full ensemble piece of work and was played in the style of Commedia dell'arte (thanks Jane Tudor for the brief 101 on the genre on the evening) with the players other than the protagonist, becoming a part of the Troupe once playing their part of that role in the story.

The piece was expertly directed by John-Mark Reid and codirection from Sara Hartigan who crafted the piece in an experiential way, constantly challenging the voyeuristic role of the audience in various ingenious ways. The staging was ever so creatively used, not only using the pit of the amphitheatre to deliver the story, but using every single inch of the amphitheatre, including its walls and the audience’s seating space, to deliver the story, thus ensuring the audience were forced to move with the story, almost as though it was promenade. Inter-scene the Troupe used various elements of physical theatre and clownship to add situation and context, as well as mishap and dilemma, to the story. The acting style from each of the players was more of portrayal than realism, which helped alienate the emotiveness of the story and matched the stylistic nature of the work. Throughout the piece there were items of set and properties brought on by the cast to help situate and contextualise the scenes. This included huge painted sheets with details of the scenes painted onto theme in the thematic orange and blue colours of the production. I make further note of these sheets further on in the review to as these were poignantly integrated into the production.

I firstly want to applaud all the cast for undertaking a piece in an outside amphitheatre. To battle for an audience's attention amongst the background of natural ambience and to be able to project and amplify sound without technical modification is a skill in itself and the cast genuinely smashed this. There was not a moment in which text was lost or distraction took away from what the cast were undertaking.

As suggested before, the ensemble drove the entire piece forwards, and I absolutely loved their delivery throughout the show. There was a simple vibrant blue and orange costume, which added to the clown-like optimisation they donned. There was not a moment any of the chorus were out of character, always high energy, working in different groups or individually to add distraction and animation to the performance. They used circus style tricks, physical theatre, audible reactions to the drama unveiling, added sound effects to help suspend the disbelief and became a part of the audience, and at times, even talking to us within character. The play is quite sharp witted and full of suspense, but the ensemble being used in such a way made the audience feel a part of the cast and broke down all layers of any of the four walls of theatre. I was particularly impressed with the investment to physicality the performers played as these troupe members. I noted at times a low motion running stemming from the lower parts of the legs and rippling upwards, no motion was half hearted and this investment made the concept of the absurdity of the performance authentic and engaging. As noted before, the painted sheets used to detail locational settings for the scenes were integrated within the physical theatre / clownship feel of the production as they were choreographed into the show as mishap and there was an element of comedy and drama associated with the troupe trying to coordinate rotating them to ensure they were visible the correct way up and round for the audience to be able to read them.  Most members of the cast had their individual roles and then seamlessly transitioned back into the Troupe once that segment of the story was done, and all characters were played within a Brechtian style where the actors were portraying a version of the character in that situation, rather than becoming that character in the space and time of the production.

I would normally at this point critique individual performances throughout the cast. With no disrespect intended to any of the players, as I feel the above summarises the collective performances throughout the cast, the only individual I am going to deliberate is the performance of Luke Ray, who played the lead Richard Hannay. Luke opened the piece by walking through from behind the audience, in and down the centre from the top of the amphitheatre. He commanded the space with a charming, detailed characterisation of a sharp witted, intelligent middle-aged man, adding idiosyncrasies of pause and inflection within his voice to add to the portrayal of the character, which drew the audience further into his narrative. From this moment, he controlled the entire performance with comedy, flair, and an unfaltering characterisation, physically, vocally and emotionally, always portrayed in the aforementioned style. I am sure I am not the only audience member who could have mistaken this college student for a trained mid to late twenties professional actor.

Thank you once again to Preston College for inviting me to this production which was a delightful experience and evening of entertainment. The cast worked extraordinarily hard to deliver such a well rounded and stylised performance of high energy, integrating various theatrical disciplines to deliver a fantastic, well crafted storyline.

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