Comedy by John Buchan and Alfred Hitchcock / stage adaptation by Patrick Barlow / German by Bernd Weitmar
Richard Hannay has just moved into his new London apartment. To escape the chaos of the move for a brief moment, he decides to finally go to the theater again. A decision that will have far-reaching consequences. During the performance, shots are fired in the auditorium and a mysterious woman asks him for protection. In his apartment, the woman reveals herself to be a spy and tells Hannay about a dangerous undertaking called The 39 Steps. But before he can get any more information out of her, the stranger falls into his arms - not out of erotic desire, but because she has been murdered. Hannay quickly realizes that the situation must look as if he is the culprit. He decides to flee - and to unravel the mystery of the 39 steps. Completely unwillingly, Richard Hannay, the man with the attractive moustache, becomes the most wanted man in the United Kingdom.
The classic thriller by suspense master Alfred Hitchcock from 1935 is brought to the stage as a fast-paced and highly comical evening of theater. The highlight: just four actors manage to slip into over 100 roles and transform the hair-raising spy thriller, complete with all its imponderables, into a turbulent theatrical spectacle.
Even as an agent thriller parody, the whole thing is great fun. [...] But even more, the absurd play with all its contortions - of limbs, human relationships, language and plot motifs - refers to a fundamentally inverted world, which is whisked up on stage to become Absurdistan par excellence.
(Dietrich Pätzold, Baltic Sea-Zeitung)
