One man is running for his life, and one is running his life into the ground. One of them has the look of a classic vigilante cop from TV and movies, but he’s no knight in dirty armor. The other is the hero of a classic spy thriller who now finds himself in a farce.
Two plays about crime are running in Hartford, both of them captivating but as different as can be. A Steady Rain, at TheaterWorks, is a blistering demolition of the police buddies genre. The 39 Steps, at Hartford Stage, is a jokey reenactment of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 film. Both stories unreel in a frame usually occupied by large casts and big budgets, but employ a combined total of six actors on minimalist stages.
In A Steady Rain, two Chicago policemen, friends since childhood, share a squad car and a lifelong loyalty. But Denny (Aaron Roman Weiner) is a volatile, self-justifying cop who beats on suspects and takes “protection” money from the hookers on his beat, while Joey (Kyle Fabel) is a go-along, get-along guy who backs Denny up and covers for him.
Unlike screen depictions of rogue cops who break the rules for heroic ends, A Steady Rain is a tragedy in the classic sense: a strong man brought down by his own hubris. A series of violent encounters and bad judgment calls sends both men down a dark tunnel, with an inevitably disastrous end.
Director Tazewell Thompson expertly unwinds the mainspring of Keith Huff’s brief, tense drama, delivered primarily in alternating monologues. The two breathtaking performances, and the full house on a weekday evening last week, are what we’ve come to expect from this reliably adventurous company, now in its 25th season.
*
The 39 Steps turns on a favorite premise of the Master of Suspense: the ordinary Joe suddenly caught up in a dangerous adventure. Patrick Barlow’s play is an almost step-by-step adaptation of the Hitchcock film, with two game-changing differences. Four actors play all the parts, and they play them all for laughs.
If you’re a serious fan of the movie and/or John Buchan’s novel, which launched the spy genre, this pastiche isn’t for you. But if you relish a good parody—of the thriller-chase genre, the overwrought 1930s style, and the conventions of theater and film (with cheeky nods to other Hitchcock pictures)—you’re in for an enjoyable ride.
Robert Eli plays Richard Hannay, a bored young Englishman whose ennui is abruptly cured when a beautiful blonde spy dies in his arms and he finds himself on the run from both the police and Nazi agents. The Hartford Stage production also features several names familiar to Valley audiences with long enough memories. Maxwell Williams directs the caper with a great eye for physical comedy, and Steve French and Noble Shropshire outdo each other in multiple cameos. My favorites were French’s vaudevillian Mr. Memory (who holds the key to the title’s secret) and Shropshire’s Scottish innkeeper and his wife (simultaneously).
The three men strike just the right comic balance, making the silliness work by playing it straight. But Christina Pumariega undermines her three roles with over-inflated burlesques.
The 39 Steps: Through May 1, Hartford Stage, 50 Church Street, Hartford, (860) 527-5151, www.hartfordstage.org.
A Steady Rain: Through May 8, TheaterWorks, 233 Pearl St., Hartford, (860) 527-7838, www.theaterworkshartford.org.
