‘39 Steps’ at Virginia Stage Company is flat-out funny

By Page Laws

The Virginian-Pilot | Jan 31, 2023 at 1:46 pm

NORFOLK — What’s so funny?

Well, I’d have to be a psycho to try to explain why “The 39 Steps” at Virginia Stage Company is so flat-out funny. I’m getting vertigo at the very thought of such scholarly acuity and daring! But here goes.

Step aside, Aristotle. Dr. Laws will attempt to explain why this MacGuffin-filled takeoff on Alfred Hitchcock and other old spy-thrillers can make a body ache with laughter.

My first indication of monkey business was the presence of two new mezzanine-level theater box seats built far downstage right and left, plus a new large cameo portrait — the outlined profile of a chubby man’s face — at the apex of the proscenium. The profile seemed to match a curious disembodied slow and creepy voice that intoned “Good eeeevening,” and proceeded to warn the audience to turn off cellphones or face dire consequences. But why “remodel” a theater that’s on the National Register of Historic Places?! Why add fake box seats (later seized upon by the actors for their antics) when there were already lots of them available? Perhaps they didn’t want the genuine ones covered with blood?

But don’t bother looking for 39 steps — to the mezzanine or anywhere else. What are “The 39 Steps”?

Shtick around. Maybe someone will let us know. …

But first let us dispense with the provenance of the production in question, taken from the Samuel French print edition: “The 39 Steps, adapted by Patrick Barlow from the novel by John Buchan from the movie of Alfred Hitchcock licensed by ITV Global Entertainment Limited and an original concept by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon.”

For a sense of historical context, the novel dates from 1915 and Hitchcock’s movie from 1935.

The VSC production has a similar hero, Richard Hannay, played by an agile, cheeky fellow named James Taylor Odom who is tasked with saving England and therefore the world from a dastardly Nazi masquerading as a British Professor Jordan (who, like his castmates, plays many other parts). The actor is one Steve Pacek, last seen as Miss Tracy Mills in “The Legend of Georgia McBride.”

Pacek is also billed as “Clown #2,” implying the presence of a “Clown #1,” who indeed exists and is deftly played by Michael Di Liberto (a master of half-audible, comic, mumble speak). Kristen Hahn joins in as Annabella Schmidt, Margaret, Pamela, and any other female role that sashays her way and hasn’t been grabbed by one of the men.

All four actors are brilliant physical comedians, guided by a clearly sadistic director, one Mark Shanahan, who is surely making actors run and jump and role-switch much faster than Actors Equity allows. To prove my point, the stage directions on Page 96 of the French edition read: “Quite a lot of this show depends on your actors’ level of Olympian fitness. It has proved an invaluable aid to weight loss.”

Weight loss? As if that were ever desirable!

At any rate, there are four actors playing dozens of witty/witless characters. Their goal? Apparently to mock every conceivable cliche from the Golden Age of Cinema, with special attention to the portly Master of Suspense and his oeuvre. (“Good eeeevening!”) Someone is also out to disembowel the very notion of a spy mystery, using slow, terrifying cruelty and questionable wigs.

Here are just a few of the shticks that poke at the ribs of spy-thriller fans.

Hannay, our world-weary hero, begins his efforts to cheer himself up with a trip to the theater, where he meets the English (or is she a Nazi?) agent Schmidt watching an elaborate music hall number. Mr. Memory (Di Liberto) and his “compère” (emcee, played by Pacek) do an outrageous act where Mr. M is supposedly asked questions by the Wells audience. (When the compère “repeats the question,” he’s actually planting a planned query for his partner to answer onstage.)

The funniest part is their exaggerated bows to one another and the repetition of “Thankoo” (cockney for “Thank you”). This is just the start of the ongoing accent shticks, hilariously mocking Oxbridge English, German and Scottish (Schmidt constantly switches her English V’s for W’s, and D’s for T’s — classic giveaways of a native German speaker). The “ch” at the end of German words is gargled and fairly spat across the stage; likewise, the “ch” ending on Scottish words is delivered with a choking bark: “Alt-na-Shellach!” (It takes about 10 seconds to expectorate that one.) Another nice trick when accent-mocking is using naughty words (untranslated) from that language. Annabella Schhhhhh-midt (“Sch” is lengthened) is fond of saying “Scheisse” for … well, ask your local German.

Talking funny is coupled, as mentioned, with pure physical comedy of the highest and fastest order (except when exaggerated slow motion is called for). The overall joke of the play is the playwright’s implicit insistence that anything film can do, theater can do better. We, therefore, get exaggerated light, wind and sound effects meant to recall every train scene in cinematic history. Though you can’t easily put a train car onstage, you can place two actors closely standing across from two other actors to mime moving within the close quarters of a train compartment. Awkward intimacy is involved each time somebody comes or goes. It’s mime time sublime.

My favorite related film shtick is the “wind” effect, necessary each time the train compartment door opens and repeated later out on the heath where Hannay runs to escape his assailants. There’s no real wind, just a lot of choreographed clothes-shaking to simulate the wind hitting cloth.

I’ve never seen a better example than Odom’s wind shakes. Odom’s likewise a hit in his “escaping from beneath the female corpse” and his “escaping as a handcuffed couple” routines, both of which also require the antics of the talented Hahn. Di Liberto and Pacek deserve commensurate awards for their quick-change “hat tricks” and duck-and-cover instant costume changes. In the climactic melee back at the London Palladium (Mr. Memory is on again), Pacek gets to spout a line not in the script that definitively and hilariously shatters the “fourth wall” between the audience and players.

As his evil Nazi guy Jordan gets shot by an unknown assailant (all four actors are standing innocently onstage), Pacek shouts in a final complaint: “It was supposed to be a cast of four!”

One final bit of praise for this manic masterpiece: Some of its silliness is soulful. Listen for the scripted “extemporaneous” speech Hannay is forced to make when he tries to hide out on the lam at a political rally.

Hannay calls for “A world where no nation plots against nation! Where no neighbor plots against neighbor, where there’s no persecution or hunting down, where everybody gets a square deal … A world where suspicion and cruelty and fear have been forever banished!”

What a funny idea! (Not.)

And what are “The 39 Steps”?? A gang of Nazis, a secret aeronautics plan, a MacGuffin (red herring, in Hitchcock-speak)?

You got me! Or maybe I got you … .

Page Laws is dean emerita of the Nusbaum Honors College at Norfolk State University. prlaws@aya.yale.edu

——

If you go

When: 7:30 Wednesday through Friday; 3 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday

Where: The Wells Theatre, 108 E. Tazewell St., Norfolk

Tickets: Start at $35

Details: 757-627-1234, vastage.org

The 39 Steps Goes Off Without a “Hitch”cock! Review from HR Spotlight

Dial “M” for “Must-See”…wait, wrong movie…

Words by Nathan Jacques. Images courtesy of the Virginia Stage Company.

It was a dark and wintry night on the streets of Norfolk, Virginia. A frigid breeze chased us down Granby street to the elegant Wells Theater. Alleyways on all sides were abounding with eerie shadows and unsettling sounds. Who (or what) could have been lurking in them? Yes, the setting was reminiscent of those often pictured in stories and films, saturated in intrigue and mystery; what on earth was in store for us? As we arrived at the remarkably ornate auditorium, we were met with…an exceptionally written and uproariously clever comedy based on an exceedingly dark film and book. Wait, what?

The 39 Steps first teased the brains of readers as a novel by John Buchan, published in 1915 during the thick of World War I. The public is likely more familiar with the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock adaptation of the novel, which is lauded as one of the best entries in Hitchcock’s filmography. Patrick Barlow adapted the story for the stage in 2005 and took quite the liberty in doing so – this new, improved version of The 39 Steps took one more step in a new direction; he went and turned it into a sidesplitting comedy that absolutely nails every gag and gaff within the script, well-earning each giggle and guffaw it elicits from its audience. It remains a classic tale of a man on the run, encumbered with the fate of his nation, but the refreshing, new tone of this staged version will prove itself as a classic, too. Unlike Hitchcock, I do not offer you a perplexing mystery; rather, let me offer a clear answer on whether you should see this production or not. To put it plainly, you’d have to be a “Psycho” to skip out on this one.

I am chuffed to inform you, dear reader, that Virginia Stage Company’s production delivers a farcically genius rendition of this very same play. Director Mark Shanahan, his production team, the cast, and crew all exhibit pure aptitude in bringing a tantalizing Broadway-quality performance to Norfolk audiences.

This cast does not suffer from “Stage Fright”. The principal, James Taylor Odom, is nothing short of spectacular. His performance as the hunted Richard Hannay oozes with charisma; with that said, Mr. Odom is every bit an athlete as he is an actor. The script calls for a seemingly insurmountable order of physical comedy but – have no fear – Mr. Odom makes it look easy! Don’t worry- the rest of the four-person cast, who all embody an exceptionally long laundry list of characters, are fantastic as well. Kristen Hahn offers an equally brilliant performance as various characters, including Pamela. Michael Di Liberto and Steve Pacek cover (literally) everyone else. Ms. Hahn, Mr. Di Liberto, and Mr. Pacek all offer performances for the ages, effortlessly morphing into different personalities that all manage to have distinct attributes and dialects. Never once did I find myself confused about who someone “was”. I did, however, find myself baffled about how such a miniscule cast could possess such incredible skill. Bravo, all – you got a standing ovation from me! If I keep going, you, dear reader, might become “The Man Who Knew Too Much”, so I will refrain from spoiling any surprises.

Such marvelous performances are impossible without the production teams and crews that make them happen. “I Confess” that costume designer Jeni Schaefer deserves special recognition for the Herculean effort of clothing all the quirky personas the cast members embody throughout the night. My hat goes off (ha!) to all the costume change specialists backstage as well, who go unnamed in the playbill.

Scenic designer D. Craig M. Napoliello and Assistant Scenic Designer Chen Wei-Liao take the “less is more” approach, and it pays off – such a fast-paced fiction requires a setting that can keep up with it. Richard and the cavalcade of characters that follow him move quickly, and the scenic designers have masterfully crafted a set that never once falls behind. A special round of applause is in order for Lighting Designer Alyssandra Docherty, Sound Designer Ryan Rumery, and Sound Engineer Shyloh Bailey, too – not a single cue felt “off”. In fact, many scenes where no set was present at all felt complete and full of life, thanks to well-timed sound cues and superb lighting schemes. The team director Shanahan pulled together is truly first-rate. I might not be able to keep myself from telling any “Strangers on a Train” I meet about how much I loved this production. It’s got me in a “Frenzy”.

The 39 Steps is one of Virginia Stage Company’s finest offerings thus far. I must admit, I have not seen the original Hitchcock film on which this play is based, but after seeing VSC’s version, I fear that the film might not hold my interest like this production did.

“Verti-go” to the box office website right this minute and procure a ticket at https://tickets.vastage.org/5646.
Original Article at HR Spotlight | https://www.spotlightnews.press/post/the-39-steps-goes-off-without-a-hitch-cock

Virginia Stage Company's "The 39 Steps" on Coast Live

HAMPTON ROADS, VA - Mix a Hitchcock masterpiece with a juicy spy novel, add a dash of Monty Python and you have "The 39 Steps", a fast-paced whodunit from Virginia Stage Company.

We talk with the show's director Mark Shanahan and actor Steve Pacek about the production, playing through February 5th at the Wells Theatre in Norfolk.

Presented by Virginia Stage Company
Box Office: 757.627.1234
VAStage.org
Checkout CoastLive for all your local news needs!

Thrilling, Humorously Delightful 39 Steps w/ Veer Magazine

by Jerome Langston

“I make no apology for loving both a good comedy, and a good mystery,” says Mark Shanahan, with both a smile and an emphatic tone—following a day full of rehearsing the latest Virginia Stage Company production, a play that will run at the midway point of the acclaimed theatre’s Season 44. Shanahan is a New York City based director/actor/playwright, who previously directed VSC’s The Hound of the Baskervilles for season 39, and penned A Merry Little Christmas Carol, a new take on the Dickens classic which wrapped an extended run here at the Wells just a few days ago. He is back in Norfolk to direct The 39 Steps, the fast-moving whodunit which won both Tony awards and the prestigious Drama Desk Award, for its Broadway run back in 2008.

Mark has directed The 39 Steps multiple times before, but never with this talented cast of four actors who collectively portray more than 150 characters over the course of two hours. “I love this play because I’ve had a long history with it,” he says during our recent chat at a large rehearsal space in downtown Norfolk. The set is still very much a work in progress on the Wells stage. Mark and I are joined by actor James Taylor Odom, who plays the show’s lead role of Richard Hannay. The three of us discuss VSC’s take on this Hitchcockian, suspenseful and zany romp of a play—and how audiences are really craving such escapist, laugh-inducing smart entertainment these days, especially considering the collective stress of this mercilessly ongoing pandemic.

Photo Credit Sam Flint

When Mark was just a young lad of 10 years of age, his father took him to see the film version of The 39 Steps, which was part of a double bill at a second run movie house in NYC’s East Village. An Alfred Hitchcock directed classic from 1935, the suspense thriller was paired with another Hitchcock classic, The Lady Vanishes. That early experience with the artistry of the English master of filmmaking, inspired a young Mark in various ways.

“It was the granddaddy of a lot of spy stories that we still see today,” the actor/director says, referring to The 39 Steps film. His love of the film made him initially apprehensive of Patrick Barlow’s adaptation of it, based upon the John Buchan novel, into a play, till he saw an early version of it in London. Remarkably, Mark would later serve as the cover for the lead role of Hannay, during the highly successful Broadway run of the play, and did actually go on in place of actor Charles Edwards for several performances. “I got to really study the way the play was constructed, and see some wonderful actors do it,” Mark says about the experience.

His success with the play on Broadway led to the many offers to direct regional productions of the play, which was initially billed as Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps. He notes that “every production has to be handled differently,” though, and the premiere of it at Norfolk’s foremost professional theatre house is no exception. “I think it fits really beautifully in the Wells,” the director says.

“We wanted to create a set that sort of felt like an extension of the Wells itself,” Mark says, about his set that is being designed by D. Craig Napoliello. “This movie and play begins and ends in a theatre.” The creative team includes Jeni Schaefer as costume designer, with lights and sound handled by Alyssandra Docherty and Ryan Rumery respectively. Besides the aforementioned James Taylor Odom, the cast includes actors Kristen Hahn, Michael Di Liberto, and Steve Pacek, all of whom have worked with Mark before, but not for this play. Many of the cast members have portrayed characters in prior productions of The 39 Steps, however.

“We’ve all had experience with it, but we’re getting to come back to it after many years away from it, and reinvestigate it together, and make a new version of it for this theatre,” says its director, who also wrote and directed the inventive A Sherlock Carol, which ran Off-Broadway at New World Stages, and was a critic’s pick by The New York Times in December 2021. “I know from doing ‘Hound of the Baskervilles’ that this audience loves a good comedy, but it loves a comedy that’s smart…and shows you excellence on stage,” Mark says, regarding VSC patrons.

In The 39 Steps, Richard Hannay is a guy who goes on the run after being falsely accused of committing a crime. Along the way “he has to discover himself, fall in love, and save the world in order to save himself,” explains Mark. It’s quite a lot to portray during the show’s two acts, but Mark felt that James was the ideal actor for the role of Hannay. “His Hannay is very particular to what he’s rehearsing and finding…” he adds.

“Through this wild, espionage romantic thriller throwback, it’s a fun journey of self-discovery,” James says early on, about his character. “Richard Hannay is kind of going through a bit of a crisis himself. He has no friends, no partner, really no family…is stripped of any kind of specific identity, which is a great setup for where this character is going.” James and Mark have known each other for many years but are working together for the first time in this play. Mark tells me towards the end of our chat that working with this great cast is part of the joy of directing this production.

“You’re in the hands of really great actors for a two-hour evening, where you can forget your worries, but also be mesmerized by their expertise. And that’s the joy of it.”

WANT TO GO?

THE 39 STEPS 

January 18-February 5

Virginia Stage Company

Wells Theatre | Get Tickets Here

VA Pilot Review: Merry meta Christmas play! ‘Twelve Dates’ a slightly racy, contemporary one-woman show

Emel Ertugrul stars in The Twelve Dates of Christmas, a co-production with Core Theatre Ensemble.

NORFOLK — Yes, “The Twelve Dates of Christmas” is X-rated — for a bit of naughty language — but the X on this shiny bauble of a play really stands for “Xmas.”

Most exciting to people who groove on Greek prefixes is that this one-woman play, starring Emel Ertugrul — an impressive stalwart of the Virginia Stage Company and the Core Theatre Ensemble — is meta all the way, standing beyond and reflecting on not one but two other Christmas chestnuts. The first: the VSC’s current “A Merry Little Christmas Carol,” with which it shares a set and runs in repertory. The second: the original “A Christmas Carol,” from which it largely derives. Thus it’s doubly meta.

Are you finding this confusing? Well, what’s the meta with you?

Before Facebook changed its name to Meta and the regrettable portmanteau word “metaverse” (for “meta universe”), literary critics threw about the prefix “meta” with abandon, latching it onto anything that, in Merriam-Webster’s words, seemed “cleverly self-referential.” So it goes here.

While “The Twelve Dates of Christmas” is contemporary in feel and appeal (and also references the hoary old song) the central character Mary — Ertugrul plays her and 12 others — happens to be a classic struggling New York actor who, while vacationing in her native Virginia (one fills in the state where the show is performed), spots her fiancé on camera at the Macy’s parade, sucking face with his co-worker.

The show follows Mary through her difficult but enlightening post-breakup year as she struggles to banish the ghost of her fiancé past and find happiness — with a dozen suitors, who turn out to be a dubious, soul-testing bunch.

All must be conjured by Ertugrul through narration, the kind in which she deftly steps in and out of voices and accents. This kind of play can be done by the actor’s racing from spot to spot onstage, laboriously delivering both sides of a conversation. Ertugrul, as directed by Laura Agudelo, also of Core Ensemble and frequently VSC, thankfully forgoes that shtick, more subtly suggesting the switches as needed. (Ertugrul’s glasses-wearing, interfering Aunt Kathy is particularly winsome with her Tidewater drawl.)

Playwright Ginna Hoben created and premiered this now one-woman show at American Shakespeare Center in Staunton before moving it to Manhattan Repertory Theatre and elsewhere. Hampton Roads’ Core Theatre Ensemble, and Ertugrul, is similarly peripatetic, having performed in Italy, Lithuania and all over this region. They often choose literary adaptations such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” (a still-memorable hit, also starring Ertugrul).

Here, the mood is somewhat literary — in that Ertugrul’s character Mary is employed during her post-breakup year as Lady Macbeth and then as a familiar Dickensian figure. Mary explains the irony: “So, while I am trying to thwart the Christmas spirit, I get hired to be the Christmas spirit. Specifically, the Spirit of Christmas Past.”

But she and we the audience are mostly focused on her parade of suitors, which she describes as the “125 jackasses it takes to meet one decent man.” While not quite that many are depicted, they do deserve the comparison.

Mary has a one-night stand with good-looking Irishman Aidan O’Reilly, who says in parting, “The only thing I enjoyed more than your fine wit … is your fine (X-rated body part).” There are folks like Emil, a “One-Hit Wonder” who “unwittingly ruined himself with (her) by showing up in a Stars and Stripes fanny pack. God bless America!” There’s “Psycho Joe,” who activates an app on Mary’s phone to track and stalk her. And there’s Mr. Tim, the father of Mary’s co-actor, Tiny Tim, a 5-year-old heartthrob who easily beats out any adult for a place in her heart. Can you hear someone’s biological clock ticking?

Sometimes there are two suitors at a time. Mary takes to one, breaks things off with the other, and then the one she liked ghosts her.

With each suitor’s departure, she drops a Christmas tree ornament into a box and we hear a “ding.” (The original script has it the opposite — her hanging an ornament — but this way seems more appropriately ironic.)

Like all one-actor shows, this 90-minute, no-intermission show demands enormous, tour-de-force acting. Ertugrul, slightly restrained on opening night, seemed to be pacing herself for a dependably bravura run.

As a meta-member of the inspired-by-Dickens club of plays, “Twelve Dates” is not all jokes and raucousness. It conveys a modern but still Dickensian quest for finding oneself, which everyone hopes to do before life’s final chimes ring out our season on Earth. In that sense, this slightly racier-than-Dickens Christmas show also proves salvific.

In Mary’s words, “The best date I had all year involved a 5-year-old.” Christmas, after all, was started by and for a child.

Page Laws is dean emerita of the Nusbaum Honors College at Norfolk State University. prlaws@aya.yale.edu

Performer, reformer: Dickens still the star in ‘A Merry Little Christmas Carol’

NORFOLK — Those of us who encounter Charles Dickens already dead and deified at the hands of English teachers might be amazed to learn what a rock star he was in his day (1812-1870).

A scene from Virginia Stage Company's "A Merry Little Christmas Carol." Left to right, actors Mesgana Jackson, Meredith Noël, Adalee Alt and Sarah Manton. (Matthew Omilianowski)

The consummate popular artist, he sold copies of his 15 masterpiece novels at the rate of a Victorian David Baldacci. On his two American tours, he hobnobbed with superstars such as Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain, even venturing to Richmond, pre-Civil War, to see slavery firsthand. (According to David Perdue’s website, The Charles Dickens Page, Dickens, a staunch abolitionist, was horrified.) He was besieged by fans as voracious for tickets to his readings as Swifties are to see their Taylor. Among his fan favorites was ”A Christmas Carol,” a cash cow for him at readings, home and abroad.

The title of Mark Shanahan’s stage adaptation of Dickens’ classic 1843 novella, now at Virginia Stage Company, also alludes to the 1944 song made famous by Judy Garland in “Meet Me in St. Louis.” Shanahan’s reference to the sentimental “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” is one of the only faux pas in this otherwise sure-footed show. The adapter’s choice of title (in which the VSC likely had no role, though it did select this adaptation) is unfortunate because the words “merry” and “little” together diminish and even infantilize the classic’s content and repute. Fortunately, the show itself, however, does neither; on the contrary, this production, featuring five fine Equity actors, reveals and fulfills Dickens’ fight for social justice and the VSC’s ethos on achieving the same.

Actors Mesgana Jackson, left, and Beatty Barnes in "A Merry Little Christmas Carol" at the Wells Theatre. (Matthew Omilianowski)

How does this adaptation differ from Dickens’ traditional “A Christmas Carol”? Well, in Bob Cratchit’s words, it’s a “wonderful pudding.” It’s been trimmed a good bit in both senses of the word “trim.” It’s been invigorated with incidental carols, though they are secondary in importance to plot and performance. And Shanahan’s adaptation has some leavening: contemporary break-the-fourth-wall patter with the audience, tactfully hushed in the most dramatic parts. Rest assured that the Ghost of Christmas Future will still scare the dickens out of you, aided by spooky lighting and Steven Allegretto’s impressive sound effects, including “chimes at midnight” sounding from the rear of the house.

Jeni Schaefer’s costumes (with the exception of Bob Cratchit’s office jacket?) are Victorian. (Recall that the Wells was built only 11 years after Queen Victoria’s demise!) Dahlia Al-Habieli’s serviceable uniset is surprisingly nautical in feeling (wheelhouse to conceal the piano, ship’s wheel, etc.) but begins to make sense when one considers the Wells’ proximity to old Norfolk’s waterfront plus a brief section of the play’s being set at sea.

But everyone goes to see Scrooge, and Beatty Barnes Jr., reprising his role from last year’s production, never disappoints.

Barnes draws on his talent as a stand-up comedian to execute Dickens’ puns, augmented or emphasized by adapter Shanahan (e.g., “no time like the present” said to the Ghost of Christmas Present). But even more important than comic chops is Barnes’ ability to pace his transformation from a man who despises the poor, turning down charity-seeking philanthropists by saying “Are there no prisons?” and “Are there no workhouses?” into a man who can promise to “honour Christmas in (his) heart, and try to keep it all the year.” The transformation begins as soon as his encounter with Marley, but it must not be rushed — comprising, as it does, the very backbone and arc of the story.

Actors in "A Merry Little Christmas Carol" at the Wells Theatre in Norfolk: Left to right, Beatty Barnes, Adalee Alt and Sarah Manton. (Matthew Omilianowski)

By Dr. Page Laws

Page Laws is dean emerita of the Nusbaum Honors College at Norfolk State University. prlaws@aya.yale.edu

Spotlight News: On a Stage in Downtown Norfolk Lives a Hobbit...

(left to right): Alana Dodds Sharp, Ryan Clemens, Thomas Hall, Jeffrey A. Haddock, and Anna Sosa

Words by BA Ciccolella. Images by Sam Flint.

Full Disclosure: I’ve been wanting to see this show since I found out that my college did it years before I attended. Their dragon puppet lived under the stage in costume storage, and I wanted to play with it SO BAD. So in a way, this review was something like 20 years in the making, and in another way, the cast had 20 years of fan-girl build-up in my mind to overcome.

That being said: Go see The Hobbit. Seriously, just, stop what you are doing, pause reading this, buy a ticket, and come back. It’s running through November 6th, you still have time. This one-act play (no intermission) by the Virginia Stage Company, presented in collaboration with the Governor’s School for the Arts, is just the thing to take your mind off of all the crap happening in the world today, and let you relax and enjoy a group of story-tellers, an epic world, and the tale of one relatively small person who just wants to be back home in his own bed.

Speaking of Mr. Bilbo Baggings, Jeffrey Haddock does a brilliant job bringing him to life at the Wells Theatre in a manner that both respects the complexity of Bilbo’s character while still being appropriate to the Hobbit as a children’s story. Alana Dodds Sharp plays an impressive Gandalf, and seamlessly transitions into other characters, even when the transition is played for a laugh.

(left to right) Jeffrey A. Haddock and Alana Dodds Sharp

Ryan Clemens is entertaining as always with his variety of characters, and brings a steadying but humorous voice of reason to Thomas Hall’s more emotional character, Thorin. Mr. Hall’s Thorin really made me appreciate more of the nuances of that particular character- this was probably the first time in being told/ reading the story that I truly appreciated the trauma that Thorin and his crew went through when Smaug attacked the Lonely Mountain, and how that affected him for the rest of his life.

A special shout out also must go to Anna Sosa, who, amongst her other characters, makes the character of Gollum both easily familiar to the audience, and also genuinely her own in this performance.

The ensemble does brilliant work of making a full world of Tolkien’s characters, and if you’ve read Tolkien (or listened to myself or Stephen Colbert talk for more than 5 minutes), you are well aware of just how big a world that can be. Every single one of the Governor’s School students on that stage more than holds their own with the adult union actors.

Jeni Schaefer’s costume design brilliantly transitions actors between different characters and monsters so seamlessly, it’s actually easy as an audience member to forget that the cast is relatively small compared to the list of characters. Between her work, and Tumôhq Abney’s props, though there are not even 15 people in the cast, the audience has no problem believing that 13 dwarves and a wizard have invaded Bilbo’s home at the beginning of the show, and that they are running into individual trolls, spiders, elves, goblins, wolves, and even a dragon.

Technically, the show is very well done, with Josafath Reynoso’s abstract set consisting of a few staircases, drops, and platforms transforming into every location in Tolkein’s Middle Earth (or at least most of the ones Bilbo sees on his first ever adventure- for those “super-nerds”, there are some scenes in the book which are cut for time). A large glowing circle at the back wall helps to indicate when Bilbo is wearing his famous ring. The production is set up as a group (or potentially two groups coming together), who are telling a story with the thing that they have found in this space, so many found-item props, (pool noodles, trash bags, head-lamps, crates, etc.) turn into the various monsters and other challenges that Bilbo and the dwarves tackle along the way.

(left to right): Jayden Adams-Ruiz, Anna Sosa, Katherine Cottrell, Thomas Hall, and Gunar Pencis

Christina Watanabe’s lighting design works to seamlessly to bring the different environments of Middle Earth to the stage, while also expanding and shrinking the space as needed to provide just the right amount of danger when monsters appear, and the exact relief needed to relax everyone back into a sense of security when Bilbo and the dwarves escape unharmed.

The “unsung” hero of this performance, however, was Steven Allegretto’s sound design, with brilliant but subtle environmental backgrounds that brought us directly into each of the locations, as well as vocal modulation assistance for the actors to play with to really bring home certain monsters. Jamison Foreman’s original music helped place us squarely in a Middle Earth where even super-fans of Tolkien and perhaps more “famous” adaptations of his work will be comfortable.

It’s very obvious that everyone onstage at The Hobbit is having a great time telling this story. Director Billy Bustamante has done a great job of putting together a version of our favorite bed-time story that both entertains, allows us to laugh and cry with the characters, and teaches us the lessons meant to be learned from this epic hero’s journey. In the words of Thorin Oakenshield, “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. But, sad or merry, The Hobbit will only be playing at the Well’s Theater until Sunday, November 6. So go see it, before it must leave us. Farewell.” …Or something like that- I may not have written down the whole quote correctly. 😉

The Hobbit is running through November 6 at the Wells Theatre in Downtown Norfolk. Tickets can be purchased here.

THE HOBBIT | Featured on Coast Live

By: Coast Live

Posted at 3:02 PM, Oct 21, 2022
and last updated 3:02 PM, Oct 21, 2022

NORFOLK, Va. — Actors Jeffrey A. Haddock and Anna Sosa from Virginia Stage Company's production of "The Hobbit" join Coast Live to discuss their experiences behind-the-scenes and onstage in this adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkein's landmark novel.

The Hobbit
Oct 19 - Nov 6
The Wells Theatre, Norfolk
Box Office: 757-627-1234
vastage.org

Presented by Virginia Stage Company
vastage.org