Cumbia de Mi Corazon, Dementia, An Evening With Sutton Foster

PHOTO BY TOM ZELENY

Acting: The First Six Lessons

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More About

• Richard Boleslavsky
• Sutton Foster
• Evelina Fernandez
• Theatrical Plays
• Theater

THE 39 STEPS Though Patrick Barlow's adaptation of John Buchan's book played on Broadway, it's the kind of lark that thrives in fringe festivals (it premiered in London's tiny Tricycle Theatre) — showcasing the quick-change antics of four actors, playing out a flippant stage rendition of Alfred Hitchcock's movie(s). There's no small irony that this season-closing production for the Ahmanson bookends the opener — Monty Python's Spamalot, another stage "homage" to another movie, with many nods to stage techniques in particular and to the theater in general. The attempt here, under Maria Aitken's direction, is to show how comedically cheesy stage effects can parody the cinema techniques employed to show, say, characters scrambling atop the roof of a fast-moving train. (In one scene, a remote toy train traverses the stage.) Even as a fake conceit, it's a fake conceit, since Peter McKintosh's seemingly minimal set comes nestled inside a huge theater with hydraulically moving pieces and every stage invention money can buy. The show is at its best when, with split-second precision, hats get swapped, jackets and dresses get dropped and exchanged, in order for Richard Hannay, Eric Hissom, Scott Parkinson and Claire Brownell to portray a gallery of dozens of characters. The story follows a British stooge (Hannay) trying to fathom the mystery of a German spy operation. The ensemble is amazingly dextrous — more so than charismatic — but that doesn't matter in an exhibition of technique. This is a lot of money to pay for carny show in which some talented actors pretend to be doing a Hitchcock movie onstage, on the cheap. I struggled earnestly to find a reason to care, and came up empty. Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., dwntwn.; Tues.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 & 8 p.m.; Sun., 1 & 6:30 p.m.; through May 16. (213) 628-2772. (Steven Leigh Morris)