Mark Wickett, Director of The 39 Steps
I’ve never tried but I imagine moving a Hitchcock film to the stage is bloody difficult.
A stage adaption of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 film The 39 Steps is opening on October 25th at the Little Theatre in Adelaide.
I meet the play’s director Mark Wickett over coffee and ask him (amongst other questions) why he’s directing The 39 Steps, particularly curious since I found both Hitchcock’s film and the John Buchan novel it was based on underwhelming.
“I thought we needed a happier show,” Wickett tells me. “The 39 Steps appealed to me because a lot of the other shows that were appearing in the theatre were very thoughtful but not very happy.”
Wickett is also attracted to the story’s message.
I ask him what that message is. I must have missed it when I read the novel and watched the film, I say.
Wickett says the message comes from its two protagonists Richard Hannay and Pamela. “You’ve got these two main characters who are very independent and want to just go their own way but they find they’re actually attracted to each other. Through the story, they change into two people who actually want to share a life together.” Two ships in the night collide and find they want to go the same way.
Buchan’s The 39 Steps is the most meandering ‘thriller’ I’ve ever read and it puzzled me why Hitchcock would have made a film from a book without the psychological thrills of his greatest films like Rear Window, Vertigo and Psycho. Wickett’s explanation is maturity.
“When Hitchcock was making films in the 30s, he still called himself an amateur. He was still learning about his trade. He was calling himself a professional by the 50s when he made Rear Window and Vertigo.”
I’ve never tried but I imagine moving a Hitchcock film to the stage is bloody difficult. He was a very image-based artist and communicated much if not all his meaning through what he put in the camera shot, the size of his shots, their angle and where he cut from one to the other. A good film, Hitchcock said, could be watched without sound and the audience could still understand what was happening, but actors on stage without sound or dialogue is a long description for a couple of mimes.
Wickett is working with different tools to Hitchcock. There are no camera shots, camera angles, camera sizes or camera cuts in the theatre. No cameras roll in the theatre.
Wickett says he intends to compensate with the actors’ gestures, lighting and sound. “There’s a transition in the film when a body is discovered by the housekeeper and she screams and then that scream fades into a train whistle. We use exactly that technique for the exact same scene transition.”
I tell Wickett I remember that transition in the film. I thank him for dispelling my confusion over Hitchcock’s film and that I’m looking forward to seeing how he brings it to the stage.
The 39 Steps opens Friday 25 October until Sunday 3 November, playing at the Little Theatre at the University of Adelaide. More information and tickets at https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1156175.