Theatre / “North by Northwest”, directed by Simon Phillips. At Sydney Lyric Theatre, until April 3. Reviewed by HELEN MUSA.

THIS is a new Sydney revival of a uniquely Aussie stage adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock‘s famous 1959 film starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, and James Mason, a play that combines theatrical savvy with technological pizzazz.

The title is probably based on Hamlet’s assertion that he is only mad “North Northwest”, meaning only sometimes, and this production is mad indeed.

David Campbell plays the Cary Grant role of boring twice-divorced executive, Roger O Thornhill, caught up in a mistaken identity case where the man the villains are after doesn’t exist.

On the way, he encounters a femme fatale with a heart of gold, Eve Kendall, played by Amber McMahon—that’s the Eva Marie Saint part.

There are some delightful vignettes, such as Genevieve Lemon playing Thornhill’s fearsome mum, Tony Llewellyn Jones as the mysterious professor, musical star Sharon Millerchip playing a fake socialite and Bert Labonté playing the evil Philip Van Damm, James Mason’s role.

But for the large part, this is an ensemble play where nobody, not even Campbell and McMahon, are left standing long enough for any in-depth characterisation.

Although the fullest appreciation of “North by Northwest” possibly requires some familiarity with the famous film, with images the wrongly-pursued hero Roger Thornhill climbing up the face of Mt Rushmore, it’s not necessary.

Indeed, in a very early scene where an Alfred Hitchcock lookalike walks across the stage, the youthful audience on opening night burst into a round of applause showing that “Hitch” still has his fans.

It beggars belief that director Simon Phillips should also be staging “The Phantom of the Opera” on Sydney Harbour next week, but in fact “North by Northwest” has been in the pipeline for some years since he and his partner Carolyn Burns adapted it for the Melbourne Theatre Company in 2015, from where it toured to the UK, Canada and the US, so associate director Jessica Burns has remounted the production.

A kind of upbeat version of “The 39 Steps”, this show requires a tight team of expert actors to play multiple characters in what was originally a Cold War drama, but which seems, in light of recent events in Ukraine, potently up-to-date.

Campbell, best known for his musical theatre roles, proves that he can act in “straight theatre,” with a performance that nods to the clipped tones of Cary Grant while capturing the wry, smart-arsed humour of his character. Campbell is not a physically large presence on stage, but he holds the attention of the audience as his character twists and turns to escape.

But let’s face it, it’s the technological mastery seen in “North by Northwest,” that makes this a must-see play and has one reading the bios of not the actors, but the creative team – Nick Schlieper as set and lighting designer, Esther Marie Hughes as costume designer, Josh Burns as audio visual designer and Ian McDonald as composer, who thankfully retains much of Bernard Herrmann’s heart-thumping film score.

There are many, many technical artists involved in creating the effects – film for the famous crop-duster pursuit scene, close-ups for notes and news reports, large electric fans to create the feeling of a tarmac, a mix of film and live action for Thornhill’s drunken car journey, film for the famous Mount Rushmore scene then replicated in live video by live actors, and simultaneous videoing throughout.

This is a short season and one likely to involve a lot of understudies as covid continues to impact upon the theatrical community, but one can only hope that it stays around long enough for the Canberra Theatre to pick it up.

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