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North by Northwest as a Stage Production -- But Not on Broadway(and why Psycho never made it as a play)

posted 2 years ago by ecarle (14979)
6 replies | jump to latest

While they were making Psycho, Anthony Perkins -- a young Broadway veteran -- suggested to Hitchcock that when filming was over and after the film had been released, he and Hitchcock should "take this to Broadway as a play."

Hitchcock demurred. But in some ways, Perkins was RIGHT. Like a good stage play the story had great long dialogue sequences (Marion and Sam, Marion and her real estate bosses, Marion and Norman, Norman and Arbogast, Norman and Sam and Lila.) But it also had long silent sequences and how, exactly , could one match the hundred-shot wizardry of the shower scene on the stage?

So no Psycho play. (And later, no Psycho musical -- Universal fended off offers.)

But evidently The 39 Steps got productions. London's West End? Broadway? I don't know. But I've seen posters.

AND...in a recent spin of YouTube surfing, I found a stage production of...North by Northwest.

Just clips. But enough to suggest that...hey...they did that pretty good. For a play.

One is reminded that North by Northwest -- like Psycho right after it -- alternates great silent(or musical) scenes of "pure cinema" with long extremely witty and well written dialogue sequences.

Case in point: the long dialogue near the beginning at the Glen Cove mansion, in which hero Roger Thornhill(Cary Grant in the movie) first meets villain Philip Vandamm(James Mason in the movie) and finds out that his life is in immediate danger of ending -- he faces the real prospect of getting killed as "the wrong man." (Vandamm thinks Thornhill is George Kaplan; Thornhill thinks Vandamm is Lester Townsend. Hoo boy.)

The supertense and witty Glen Cove mansion scene in NXNW benefits immeasurably from Cary Grant and James Mason trading lines in their inimitable, British-based accents. That would be hard to beat in any remake -- movie, TV or stage.

But evidently North by Northwest and that scene have made it to the stage intact...in New Zealand. Or did. I could not make out the dates by the YouTube clips.

The production seems to have been put together in a "polished" and sophisticated way. The leads approximate Grant, Mason and Eva Marie Saint without imitating them (who could?) It looks like they got real menace into the on-stage scene where Vandamm's henchmen grab Thornhill and force liquor down his mouth; the drunk car drive is amusingly done on stage and evidently big process screens make the crop duster scene and Mount Rushmore climax come to some life on stage.

Hey, why not?

[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

But evidently North by Northwest and that scene have made it to the stage intact...in New Zealand. Or did. I could not make out the dates by the YouTube clips.

Checking around the show seems to booked in for about a month of performances in Auckland starting October 25. It was premiered (with the same Kiwi director) in Melbourne back in 2016 and appears to have been successfully restaged in the UK and in Canada since then: see this link for details
https://www.northbynorthwesttheplay.com/about-the-show/
The Auckland shows in 2022 are the local-boy-made-good director 'bringing his international hit show back to his home town'!
Anyhow, it sounds like the show is successful enough - notwithstanding that some have criticized the Eve Kendall role as too sexist and damsel-in-distressy to be worth reviving, e.g.,
https://www.theatretravels.org/post/review-north-by-northwest-at-the-lyric-theatre
- that it's probably only a matter of time before someone produces it in the US, maybe somewhere like LA or Seattle or Chicago before B/way.

Interestingly, looking around I discovered that another (much less high-profile) Auckland theater group has a Chinese-language staging of Rear Window in November:
https://pumphouse.co.nz/whats-on/show/rear-window/

So Hitchcock is the gift that keeps on giving even on stage (in Chinese!).

I must say too that covid shut down *so much* for over 2 years that right now in NZ there's a sudden efflorescence of performances and tours. That Haim show in Auckland you mentioned recently (they're headlining a festival here next January) sold out in just a couple of hours a few days ago, Billy Joel is doing a huge (50K+) stadium gig here in early December, and so on. The Hitch stage productions are just part of that wider opening up and boom.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 2 years ago

I find it fascinating when movies are adapted to the theater-- so often it's the other way around, with movies "opening up" stage productions. For a film-to-play, I imagine the creators have to do their best not to seem restrained by the different medium.

Funnily enough, I watched a stage version of the Evil Dead movies recently (I know-- very different from Hitchcock, but same basic principle) and it amazed me how well it converted the three movies into one coherent show. Of course, they played up the camp and on-stage effects-- there's a different vibe to a live theater audience than a movie audience. There's more of a connection between live players and an audience because the performers are actually there and can improvise based on the energy from the crowd if they wish.

Anyway, as to Psycho as a play, it would be tough. I'm not so sure it could work, especially since the film version (by far, the version most are familiar with, rather than the original Bloch novel) is so iconic and so cinematic in every way.

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

I find it fascinating when movies are adapted to the theater-- so often it's the other way around, with movies "opening up" stage productions.

---

Oh, yes. Movies practically HAD to be made from successful plays(if not novels) "back in the movie day." The movies were handservants to Broadway and novels. Broadway and movies: That's the whole Neil Simon career. Hitchcock didn't much like filming plays but he did Rope and Dial M(as experiments). And we've discussed how great Wait Until Dark translated to film.

--

For a film-to-play, I imagine the creators have to do their best not to seem restrained by the different medium.

--

Its worthy of study. I saw the Sunset Boulevard musical and it opened well with a "stage" version of the movie's great opening shot of the dead screenwriter floating above us in the swimming pool.

Adding music seems to be key: "Mame." "Hello Dolly" (from The Matchmaker, the movie had Tony Perkins in it.) As I noted , Universal fended off attempts at a Psycho musical (good -- the story should be respected for its "reality.")

---Funnily enough, I watched a stage version of the Evil Dead movies recently (I know-- very different from Hitchcock, but same basic principle) and it amazed me how well it converted the three movies into one coherent show. Of course, they played up the camp and on-stage effects-- there's a different vibe to a live theater audience than a movie audience. There's more of a connection between live players and an audience because the performers are actually there and can improvise based on the energy from the crowd if they wish.

---

Oh, yes, I've seen some stage plays with "real people" up there and to my shock they pushed right past my suspension of disbelief and I found myself shocked by violence upon them and moved (to tears) by sad scenes. You can get "movie emotion" from a play.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Anyway, as to Psycho as a play, it would be tough. I'm not so sure it could work, especially since the film version (by far, the version most are familiar with, rather than the original Bloch novel) is so iconic and so cinematic in every way.

--

I think it is "cute" that Tony Perkins tried to sell Hitchcock on taking it to Broadway. Would have Tony agreed to 1,000 peformances? Would Hitchcock have directed?(Elsewhere, he said "I know nothing about how to direct a play.") Could any of the other castmates be lured to do it(I'll guess Martin Balsam, because he was a New Yorker with Broadway work, too.)

And the various dialogue scenes are good -- if not quite "Tennessee Williams" level metaphoric.

BUT: Psycho IS cinematic a lot of the time. The two murders. The eyeball shot of Norman at the peephole. The eyeball shot of Marion on the floor. The camera under Norman's throat. The camera move up and over the staircase.

Probably best left behind as an idea, nothing more.

[–] wrlord (1141) 2 years ago

39 Steps was not a straight play; it was a comedy in which they threw as many Hitch references as they could just for fun. You certainly can't do that with Psycho.

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

39 Steps was not a straight play; it was a comedy in which they threw as many Hitch references as they could just for fun. You certainly can't do that with Psycho.

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In the immortal word of Ed MacMahon (who is HE?) :

"I did not KNOW that." I suppose one could "enrich" The 39 Steps by adding lots of other Hitchcocck references. But not Psycho.

You know, I love Psycho, and I'm kind of proud it was "selected" from among Hitchcock's works to get three sequels, a remake, a movie about its making, a TV pilot, and a cable series but...enough's enough. There's nothing more to milk from it.

Is there?