Category: Touchstone Theater

In less than a month’s time, I have been privileged to see two plays based on iconic 20th Century movies. First was the Milwaukee Rep’s It’s A Wonderful Life Radio Play and now the American Players Theater, The 39 Steps. Of course, the anticipation before both of these plays was intensified by my curiosity around how these wonderful theater companies were going to translate such memorable movies to the stage.

The underlying premise for Hitchcock’s film of the common man getting caught up in a web of deceit and intrigue and coming out the hero is absurd. Absurd! Keep that word in front of mind because Patrick Barlow’s adaptation is going to plunge us into the absurd! Barlow’s adaptation is loosely based on the film. Loosely! The basic story line remains intact: it’s a spy thriller and our hero gets caught up with a femme fatale German spy, runs across Europe trying to solve the puzzle, is falsely accused of murder, is chased by henchmen and police, is tempted by a number of captivating women, and triumphs in the end. Now, after that, take all of your preconceived notions on how that happens and what is said and throw them out the rear window (sorry, there should have been a spoiler alert there since I just twisted a joke from the play to my own devices. warning: I may do it again).

Just what do we have here? Well as director John Taylor Phillips mentions in his note in the playbill, “If Alfred Hitchcock and Monty Python had a theatrical baby, it might look something like Patrick Barlow’s adaptation…”. Yes indeed, there is certainly a resemblance to Python humor…but I also sense a great deal of Charlie Chaplin…and the interactions between Nate Burger and Casey Hoekstra, probably owe something to Stan Laurel and Oliver Harvey as well. And although I have to credit Phillips with a cinematic vision across this small stage…there is no way this would have happened without the ensemble being wholly committed and inwolved (sic !!). And Phillips takes great care, great care indeed, to poke fun at any number of cinematic and theatrical norms and structures throughout. Half the fun is finding them and recognizing them as they occur. And Barlow has baked in a few references to other things Hitchcock. like my reference to Rear Window above. Every Hitchcock fan will delight in those. And I believe the trunks scattered and moved around the set to act as beds, chairs, tables, rail car seating, car seats, and the roofs (why isn’t that rooves?) of train cars, actually seem to resemble the one in Rope. Keep your eyes and ears open for Hitch references. Is this Barlow’s means of providing a Hitchcock cameo?

There are four actors in the show. Three of them play multiple roles…a couple of them dozens of characters. It gets very complicated and confusing…it’s a miracle that it all works so well.

Marcus Truschinski plays our protagonist, Richard Hannay (or Hammond or Highsmith or Hwhatever). He plays the role for all that it is worth, rising to the occasion as attractive females fawn over him, pretend to fawn over him, or actually fall over him in their death throe. Truschinski keeps his cool and pursues the solution to the mystery presented him. He proves himself to be the consummate comic actor as he gets himself out of any number of tight spots. Besides acting the quick witted and glib tongued Hannay, Truschinski also simulates the varying ‘death defying’ stunts that always enable his last minute escapes! Some of his implied escapades, to me, are reminiscent of Chaplin movie stunts.

Laura Rook gets to play three entrancing but completely different female roles. We first meet her as Annabella Schmidt, our femme fatale German spy, as she reveals the plot to Hannay just before she breathes her last in his apartment. Rook’s German accent is an ear stretching exercise in its own wit. And then she moves on to the woman who meets Hannay on the train as he dashes into her compartment and embraces her to avoid the police in pursuit…but she turns him in. And again later she turns him in but eventually comes around to understand he is telling the truth. Rook is wonderful in her transition from insulted to enamored. And finally she shows her coquettish side as she plays the young wife of a farmer who agrees to put Hannay up for the night (wink wink) Three visions of beauty, three accents, three very different characters…and Rook smoothly moves from one to the other.

And then we come to the Clowns. Now, no actual clowns were harmed in the making of this production and no actual clowns take part. Instead clowns here is the descriptive term that lets us know what activities Nate Burger and Casey Hoekstra are going to embark in. They are about to play multiple roles, many of them slapstick, many as a pair or duo, and here’s where I feel the Laurel and Hardy influences come into play. They play spies, policemen, salesmen on a train, a Scottish couple running a hotel, and the aforementioned young wife and older farmer. Sometimes in quick unison and sometimes back and forth and back and forth. And each time with change in costume and accent and age…and sometimes gender. In through the out door and wig on wig off or give me the other wig. And there is a moment on the train as they squeeze around the compartment that does seem like a clown car skit at the circus. These gentlemen are completely fluid and nonplussed through it all, and absolutely hilarious. One paean to Hitchcock, and I got lost in transition, but I think this bit belongs to Hoekstra, but as he plays a police officer on the rail platform talking with someone on the train. He speaks in a voice oddly reminiscent of a certain James Stewart! Bravo.

Besides director John Taylor Phillips who kept this all straight and moving in a jagged line, there are two other heroes here who don’t appear on stage. Scenic designer, Nathan Stubar, who made a city, railway, manor, hotel, moors, car, and biplane out of nothing right here on stage in the Touchstone Theater. A couple of step ladders and a cross ladder become a very effective and believable bi-plane! And costume designer, Holly Payne, who managed to keep the costumes in place at the exact moment they were needed and looking precisely right for the character…and if someone else besides Payne was responsible for the wigs on the clowns, give them a gold star for this season ender.

And one more thing: we don’t need no stinking sound effects when the director allows the cast to channel their inner eight year old selves and make the appropriate noises! And those of you sitting front row? You may end up being inwolved for a moment or two.

And as promised, Spoiler Alert (dad joke): When is a picture frame, not a picture frame? When it’s a rear window!

The 39 Steps runs in the American Players Theatre’s Touchstone Theater through November 30, 2025 but most shows are sold out so call the box office, just in case: More info here!

Extra Credit reading: the Playbill!

Recommended reading: ^^John Taylor Phillips Director’s Note! ^^

Yasmina Reza wrote Art in 1994, in French. And the American Players Theatre are presenting an English translation by Christopher Hampton that is a quintessential French existential comedy. And despite the translation, director Jackson Gay has lost nothing of the Frenchness here! So this is the play for the Francophile, Art Lover, and Theater Goer in you!

Art features three characters, long long time friends, middle aged and fairly successful. Serge, a doctor, Marc, an engineer, and Yvan, who is soon to be married, is currently working in sales. And our set fits all of the parameters set forth by Reza, a simple apartment setting that changes location depending on the occupant, Serge, Marc, or Yvan. As Reza stated and the program reinforces: nothing changes, except for the painting on the wall. Kate Noll’s set is perfect but I will get to the details in a bit!

Art is played complete without intermission but it isn’t quite a traditional act/scene format. Instead we observe a series of vignettes as the friends interact in pairs or in the full group and each, at times, will step forward solo into a spotlight and address the audience directly. So there is some backstory and story line set up that we alone are privy to directly

Marc is the engineer. And costume designer, Fabian Fidel Aguilar, has dressed him in a bit oversized rumpled suit that would do a disheveled academic proud. And as Marc, Triney Sandoval fills that suit with a big personality, a bit of cocky assuredness, boundless energy for a middle aged professional, and a sense of superiority over his friends. And when the balance of power in this little trio begins its shift, Sandoval can bring out the bit of condescension that Marc’s character calls for. You will know exactly how Marc feels about art, trust me. BTW: Marc sets up the intro to the play!

Serge is a doctor, a dermatologist I believe. Aguilar has dressed Serge in the perfect Euro threads for a professional in the late parts of the 20th Century. Tailored sport coat, flawless jeans, turtleneck shirt, and the perfect shoes; elegant business casual, if you will. Marcus Truschinski presents Serge with the perfect airs of what Americans might envision as a stereotypical Parisian of the period. Perfectly groomed, he delights in his new found knowledge and appreciation for ‘modern art’. Although I’ll claim it’s actually ‘post modern’, but that’s a minor quibble. And he has purchased a new painting by a major figure in French modern art for a considerable sum. And when first showing it to Marc, he makes Marc guess how much he paid for it. The currency isn’t mentioned but whether Francs or Euros, it is a considerable sum. Serge’s new prize is described as a four foot by five foot painting in white with a few off white or sometimes gray stripes across the vast expansive face. For our APT version, the lines are a bit raised from the surface for the benefit of the audience. But Marc, with a clear and expressed disdain for modern art, forcefully declares the painting to be ‘white shit’. And you can imagine where the play goes from here.

La Shawn Banks’, Yvan, is far more energetic character than his two friends. Because of that energy and activity on stage he makes us feel like he’s a bit younger. In his earlier aside in introducing Yvan, Marc tells us that Yvan hate conflict and will often act as an arbiter and try to calm the waters. And Banks gives us that Yvan precisely, joining in with Marc’s criticism of the painting and fun at Serge’s expense over the folly of the painting when meeting with Marc, and then of course, the opposite when he visits Serge. But when the three get together to go out for the evening, he gets caught in the middle as both Marc and Serge try to use his own comments to support their positions in the argument.

And here is the grand focus of the play. Art is the pivot in the story to investigate and discuss friendship. Why are these men friends? How do you maintain long term friendships? What do you accept that normally might irk you? What do you over look? What do you repress? Reza and Gay present a pretty dynamic discussion of all of these topics as the three confront each other. But there is a resolution…a happy resolution.

Now I promised a description of Kate Noll’s stage set. Up front on the Touchstone’s thrust stage, Noll has placed three pieces of a sectional, just a bit off white, just a bit severe, and just aptly late 20th Century Euro in feel…all against a perfectly white central back wall with a few white moldings and highlights, that refuse to let us forget the anatomy of the painting.

And I can’t take credit for this, but my wife, Rosalie, mentioned this as we were heading back to the car, but Yvan’s costume contains burgundy, borrowed from Serge’s turtleneck, and blue, borrowed from Marc. Bravo, and how clever, to Aguilar once again!

Spoiler alert but I couldn’t ignore this. At their major falling out and reconciliation, they were supposed to meet to go to a movie and then to dinner. Yvan was 40 minutes late and was all apologetic but Marc and Serge were having none of it. And then Yvan breaks down in a breathless minutes long rant about his day and the arguments around his wedding invitation between his fiance, father, future step mother in law, his own step mother, and mother…until we are ready to burst for breath. When he finishes Marc and Serge just stare in incomprehension and the audience erupts in a round of applause. But he’s not done, he’s just catching his breath, repeat. And when he finally finishes and reaches for sympathy, Marc and Serge, still sore that he was late, just tell him to call it off.

And just an aside. Given that it is 2025, many might find the argument around the painting rather surprising having lived with modern art and post modern art for better than a century. Even in 1994, when this was written, it was probably something of a surprise, particularly in Paris. But back in the day when I was in art school (1968 – 1973) this would be very much a topic for discussion in art history and the painting studios…although I don’t remember any friendships being risked over it! LOL!

More information on the APT’s Art and tickets here. Art is presented in APT’s intimate indoor Touchstone Theater, down the hill. It plays in repertory with other plays, so there aren’t that many dates left in the season and as of this writing a number have sold out. But the last day for Art is September 28, 2025. Contains adult themes & language.