The 39 Steps is in the style of vaudeville theatre. A main feature of this is the fast pace which we have been working on. Many elements of the play will only be comical if delivered quickly, for example the scene on the train with Hannay and the Clowns which needs to be quick and snappy to really bring out the humour, which will come with practice. Currently the only thing slowing us down are the transitions between scenes, as we do not have a crew so we need to move everything ourselves, but we are going to use plain blocks and a couple of chairs for most of our set to make it slicker. Once we have completely set our act we need to rehearse the transitions to make sure they run smoothly and do not take away from the performance.
Another important part of vaudeville is the energy. If we let the performance fall flat it will not be entertaining as it is not straight drama, the energy needs to be kept up throughout to bring the characters to life and make it more comical. Energy is very important for the multi-rolling as it needs to be obvious what we are doing, so everything needs to be massive. Although high energy is required, it should be used in different ways for the different characters. For example Anabella is more sarcastic and serious, where as Margaret is more excitable and innocent.
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