As it turns out, the play has many amusing moments, even more clever ones, and a few truly inventive instances of imaginative stagecraft. But somehow all these pleasures do not combine to transport us onto the high, giddy plane of sustained comedic rapture. ‘‘The 39 Steps’’ is too insubstantial a bit of moonshine to make any claim on us other than entertainment, so it needs to be extremely entertaining.
Hitchcock accomplished that feat with razor-sharp construction and expertly accumulated suspense. The stage version, directed by Maria Aitken and adapted by the British comedian and playwright Patrick Barlow from a concept by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon (phew!), undercuts the suspense with goofy puns and sight gags, then lets the goofiness sag for minutes at a time by doggedly returning to its faithful retracing of the screenplay’s steps. All 39 of them, and then some.
In fairness, the wit and economy of some effects are dazzling: the chase scene atop a hurtling train, represented by a row of leather trunks; three ladders transformed into a steel bridge; the strobe lights and flashlights and footlights that lighting designer Kevin Adams amusingly employs to re-create the flickering chiaroscuro of the film; and, best of all, the shadow-puppet sequence that turns a sheet and a few bits of cardboard into Hitchcock’s lowering Highland skies and ominous biplanes, then escalates into a hilarious pastiche of Hitchcockian images. (Don’t miss the cameo by a very familiar silhouette.)
The actors, too, display a breathtaking range of skills and moods. First of all, there are just four of them, filling more than 100 roles. Charles Edwards, as the hunted but ever debonair protagonist, Richard Hannay, is the only import from the London cast, and he delivers a gently satiric version of the film’s debonair Robert Donat with effortless charm. Jennifer Ferrin gets the wisecracking ingenue role — handcuffed to Hannay, whom she believes to be a murderer — and executes it with wit and style.
