The 39 Steps

Tonight I want and saw the first play of the season from the SPARC Theater (Shakespeare and Performing Arts Regional Company, formerly the Livermore Shakespeare Festival). It wasn’t Shakespeare, but it was an interesting production of The 39 Steps. It’s based on a novel and a Hitchcock film, and I was expecting it to be a serious suspenseful spy drama, but instead it was a slapstick farcical play that was very cleverly staged. The cast was only composed of 4 people, and apart from the main character, all the other players jumped cleverly between a large variety of roles. They used the sparse staging cleverly and with a wink towards the audience. It was good to see the theater up and going again after the years of lockdown. Since they’re last production, they’ve moved to the Darcie Kent Vineyards, which seemed a little smaller venue, but had a beautiful background in the hills and vineyards and it seemed a little quieter than before. It was quite a cool night for a July in the valley, and Bob got kind of chilled, but I am looking forward to the next production, which is a Shakespeare play.