39 Steps

Saturday afternoon, we made the trek back to LA, this time using one of our own cars instead of the charter bus. Our destination: the Ahmanson to catch a special limited run of Alfred Hitchcock's "The 39 Steps". We'd caught snippets of the show on the Tony's and decided then and there that if the show ever may its way to the Left Coast, we'd make every effort to see it. (Many thanks to Goldstar for offering discounted tickets!)

The story centers on Richard Hannay, an average Englishman, who suddenly finds himself the main suspect in the murder of a woman named Annabella Schmidt. It doesn't help matters that she's found dead in his flat or that she had been trying to stop a notorious spy from fleeing the country with the mysterious 39 Steps. Now, Richard must find a way to stop the spy himself, to clear his name and to uncover just what the 39 Steps are.

That's the main story, as Hitchcock told it on the big screen.

Now, picture four actors from a 1950s English theatre company trying to put on a show with the barest of stages, using boxes, a few chairs and a door on casters as the props, with two vaudevillian actors portraying 150 characters from the film (with the occasional mishap), and with quick costumes changes performed on stage. They manage to transform what seems like nothing into one of the funniest plays I've ever seen. From almost the very beginning, with Richard Hannay seated in his chair, relating the events of his adventure to the audience, we found ourselves at first chuckling, then laughing heartily to uncontrollably. (The scene with the lamppost and the curtained window had to be one of the best staged scenes, certainly one of the trickiest.) Claire Brownell, Ted Deasy, Eric Hissom and Scott Parkinson must have worn themselves ragged, but never missed a beat. With as much physical humor as there were jokes, these four actors brought the movie to life, throwing in the occasional references to many other Hitchcock films (Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho, and many others). And to think this was the matinée show; they had one more staging only a few hours after this one ended.

Still laughing as we left the theatre, we headed for an early dinner at La Luz del Día in Olvera Street. I hadn't been there since elementary school, when we filled school buses for a field trip. The street vendors still peddled little guitars and maracas, ponchos and blankets, Mexican candies, and the ever-popular confetti eggs, but they've added Mexican wrestler masks by the hundreds in the permanent carts running down the center of the street. The side shops offered candles, almost anything Frida Kahlo that could be imagined, figurines and masks for the Día de los Muertos, and wonderful food.

We didn't stay too long, just enough for some soft carnitas tacos and a quick wander through each of the shops. No souvenirs this time, but I was tempted to bring home a carton of the confetti eggs. Just for old time's sake.