Sunday evening, after a spectacular dinner at Tio Pepe, I saw the Broadway show The 39 Steps at Baltimore's Hippodrome Theater. This play is based on the original 1935 British thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and the adventure novel The Thirty-nine Steps by John Buchan.
Mix a Hitchcock masterpiece with a spy novel, add a dash of Monty Python, and you get The 39 Steps, a fast-paced whodunit, packed with non-stop laughs, over 150 zany characters (played by a cast of 4), an onstage plane crash, missing fingers, handcuffs and a little romance.
A man with a boring life meets a woman with a thick accent who says she's a spy...when he takes her home she is murdered. Soon a mysterious organization called "The 39 Steps" is hot on the man's trail in a nationwide manhunt. The 39 Steps is a riotous blend of virtuoso performances and wildly inventive stagecraft.
