Terry Gadaire and Deborah Ostreicher star in the
Fountain Hills Theater's production of "The 39 Steps."
Patty Torrilhon
On Sunday I saw the last performance of The 39 Steps at the Fountain Hills Theater. I had never seen the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock film before, so like always I obtained the DVD from the library and watched it before seeing this play. I usually don't like old Hollywood movies, and The 39 Steps was no exception. I thought the movie was pretty awful, really boring, and took itself way too seriously. So it's PERFECT to spoof! This hysterically funny play was Alfred Hitchcock meets Monty Python meets The Carol Burnett Show. Even the lead actress, Deborah Ostrecher reminded me of comic actress Vicki Lawrence with her brilliant physical comedic performance.
The play exactly follows the movie, but there are only four cast members playing all the characters. Terry Gadaire plays only the lead character Richard Hannay and is on stage the entire time and he is hilarious, he cracked me up with all his comical facial expressions. He is just so funny! Deborah Ostreicher plays the three main female roles, and all extremely well. All the other characters, both male and female are played by Clown 1, Roger Prenger, and Clown 2, Michael Stewart. These two guys were fabulous, and had the hardest and the most physical job of all. They had to constantly change costumes and dialects, and sometimes while on stage in the same scene too. They both gave outstanding performances.
This play was extremely well done and so wonderfully entertaining I only wish I had not seen it on the last day of its run, because I would definitely go see it again...it was that good.
