Photo by Cheshire Isaacs
BIOGRAPHIES WELCOME
“A fool tries to look different: a clever man looks the same and is different.” —John Buchan, The 39 Steps My father is a classic film buff and Alfred Hitchcock aficionado. Many of my favorite childhood memories involve stovetop popcorn, a cold soda and hours of Turner Classic Movies on the couch with my dad. His Hitchcock collection was a carefully labeled series of Betamax tapes organized by release date. Three of my favorite films sparked a lifelong love for the genre: North By Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much and The 39 Steps. There was something deeply compelling about Hitchcock’s espionage thrillers, where a regular Joe finds himself, through a series of unexpected and unlucky coincidences, in a highstakes race to save humanity. Perhaps it was the very idea that one ordinary human being in extraordinary circumstances could change the course of history that inspired me, but a love affair of the genre was born. In the stage adaptation of The 39 Steps, Patrick Barlow brilliantly imbues the play with comedy, mystery, absurdism and optimism that has captured the hearts of millions of people around the globe. In tour de force performances, four actors transform this tale into a 4
Th e Reper tory Theatr e of S t. L ou is
