The popular farce gets a topnotch production as the theatre marks its 60th season.

Thought experiment: what if the raw material of Alfred Hitchcock’s famous early thriller, The 39 Steps, was turned into a slapstick comedy? Creede Repertory Theatre’s crackerjack new production shows us the possibilities — and makes it well worth the journey to Creede as part of its 60^th season.

Seventy years after Hitchcock’s 1935 spy thriller was released, playwright Patrick Barlow reviewed the original novel by John Buchan and saw the makings of a farce. The play makes a good case for Barlow’s vision: Richard Hannay, a bored Canadian visiting London, goes to a music hall, comes home with a beautiful, mysterious female spy, is soon suspected of murder and is then chased into the Scottish Highlands by both police and foreign agents.

Such a far-fetched premise is easily milked for humor. This is a play in which waking to discover a corpse in one’s lap is met with “Golly!” Credit to director Christy Montour-Larson (usually helming shows at Denver’s Curious Theatre) and the cast for carrying off the play’s hijinks with high glee. In two hours of relentlessly paced costume, scene and accent changes, no one seemed to break a sweat.

What’s astonishing is that four actors perform over 150 parts. Two of them, Katie Rodriguez and Logan Ernstthal, do the lion’s share of rotating characters, carrying out over 146 parts between them. At one point Rodriguez switches characters with every line of dialogue, literally putting on a different hat for each response in a conversation. It’s funny, farcical and very impressive.

For his part, Ernstthal, a 13-year veteran of Creede Repertory, plays a high-class Scottish villain and a working-class police detective, among others. These are substantial parts calling for widely differing characterizations and Ernstthal is instantly believable. Such skill in quickly establishing each character is key to keeping the audience on board with the play’s hectic pace.

Olivia Howell pivoted easily from the mysterious spy with a thick accent, to the skeptical Pamela who blows the whistle on Hannay, to a flirtatious Scottish wife, and back again to Pamela.

Katie Rodriguez and Logan Ernstthal in ‘The 39 Steps.’ | Photo: Brooke Ashlee Photography

Theatrical circus

Cam Davis, as Richard Hannay, is the stable center in this rigmarole, the tent pole for the circus taking place around him. Davis, who frequently appears on Denver stages, has the charisma to pull this off. His bemused gentility, occasionally bursting into aggravation, made it easy to identify with his plight.

Much of the humor of the play comes from a variety of breaking the fourth wall by letting the audience see the scaffolding of the performance. For example, actors argue about taking a taxi, only to realize they must “make” a taxi by assembling four prop chairs.

Overplayed stage cues invite the audience into the action. Two menacing men are repeatedly, obviously referred to and the spotlight immediately swerves to the mysterious men in one and then another corner just offstage.

The play also has great fun with Scottish dialect. In one scene, Hannay tries to communicate with a Scottish farmer about a “big house” – or “bag hoose” as the Scot has it.

Riding the train, the Flying Scotsman, to Scotland, the actors bounce rhythmically to simulate the train’s movement. This escalates into a tour de force when, in a scene copying Hitchcock’s film, Hannay jumps from the train to escape capture. The actors agilely and expertly enact holding on to a moving railway car for dear life as the chase continues.

The sound design, by Max Silverman, was a notable contribution. A scream like a noon whistle, another homage to Hitchcock’s film, and airplane crashes are made vivid by auditory cues.

The 39 Steps is a farce that also dips into the realm of vaudevillian sketch humor. The slapstick comedy and mad dash from one ridiculous situation to the next are what gives it life. It’s nearly impossible to invest in any of the characters or the plot. Even the amazing Mr. Memory, star of the music hall who holds the key to the mysterious spy group called the “39 Steps” (Katie Rodriguez in her umpteenth role), struggles to recall how the conspiracy works.

No matter. Climb aboard for a delightful ride with weird and beautiful characters. There’s another laugh around the bend.