The Penner theatre troupe is at it again.
Local siblings Bruce, Scott, and Ken Penner and their sister Jan Funk will be playing more than 40 characters in their upcoming performance of the adapted Alfred Hitchcock whodunit, The 39 Steps.
The play combines a film masterpiece with a juicy spy novel, with a splash of Monty Python humour just for fun.
Set in 1935, this heart-racing spy story features the rather dull Richard Hannay who meets a woman with a thick accent who claims she’s a spy. When he takes her home, she is murdered. Soon, a mysterious organization called The 39 Steps is hot on the man’s trail in a nationwide manhunt that climaxes in a death-defying finale.
According to Bruce Penner, the play features a riotous blend of virtuoso performances and wildly inventive stagecraft, resulting in an evening of entertainment audiences won’t soon forget.
“It’s like a Sherlock Holmes kind of mystery, but what’s fun with this one is that each of us play a wide variety of characters,” he says. “While Scott plays the main character who falls into this role of saving mankind, our sister Jan plays three different women, and Ken and I take on the roles of about a dozen characters each. That’s the part that makes this a spoof, with such a small cast being able to go through all those costume and character changes without skipping a beat and losing any of the momentum of the plot.”
Adding to the performance is a nine-member production crew helping in the background taking care of the set and costumes.
The Penner brothers performed the Hitchcock favourite The Hounds of the Baskervilles five years ago and have been searching for another crowd-pleaser to bring to the Buhler Hall stage ever since.
“We searched websites for years, for a play with a low cast number. This one showed up on Ken’s YouTube feed one day,” says Penner. “It was a book that was adapted for the stage, as a spoof for four people. I ordered the scripts right after he sent it to me, and away we went.”
Finding the right score was also a lot of fun, he says.
“The play is set in the 1930s, so we included a lot of big band music from that era. That really adds to the mood and the action.”
He adds that working together on a project like this feels very natural for the siblings.
“I think it’s amazing. There’s a dynamic between all of us that just seems to work. We’ve already had a lot of acting experience with other Cottonwood theatre productions and, siblings or not, we already know it always ends up feeling like you’re all part of one big family. You become this tight knit group that gets together to rehearse for months, and then you go through a kind of withdrawal when it’s all over.”
The 39 Steps will be performed at Buhler Hall in Gretna Feb. 1-3 at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets range from $25 to $30 for adults and $15 for 17 and under and are available online at mciblues.net or by calling 204-327-5891.
