“Actor Amanda Cordner once said in a talkback that theatre should be an Olympic event,” notes Sébastien Heins. “The 39 Steps epitomizes that thought.”
He would know. As an actor, writer, and producer whose career spans solo hip-hopera, Shakespeare, and tech-driven interactive memoirs, Heins is no stranger to high-performance theatrical feats. But even for him, this summer’s Guild Festival Theatre production of The 39 Steps—a genre-blending, quick-change spy comedy performed outdoors at the Greek Theatre — poses a special kind of challenge.
Adapted by Patrick Barlow from both John Buchan’s 1915 novel and Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 thriller movie adaptation of it, The 39 Steps is billed as part masterpiece, part spy caper, and part Monty Python-style farce. The plot follows Richard Hannay, a Canadian living in London, who is bored with his life until he meets a mysterious woman claiming to be a spy … who is then murdered in his flat. Falsely accused, Hannay finds himself on the run to Scotland, pursued by police and an ominous group known only as “The 39 Steps”. In a whirlwind of accents, costumes, and slapstick chaos, the play’s cast of just four — Heins, Georgia Findlay, Isaiah Kolundzic, and Kiana Woo — portray more than 100 characters in almost as many settings: “The train scene, the hat change scene, the plane chase… these are chaotic sequences!” Heins enthuses. “But behind this chaotic world are hours of rehearsal by a brilliantly talented cast… who crack me up every single day… and I love the push and pull they exhibit between total discipline and reckless abandon.”
Stepping into the lead role of the buttoned-up, increasingly out-of-his-depth Hannay has offered Heins a different kind of thrill than his usual shape-shifting solo shows. “Playing Hannay is its own welcome challenge, since I get to play a character whose soul changes throughout the play… but I don’t get to get in on the fun of playing a cast of thousands like Kiana, Isaiah, and Georgia do!” Still, there’s a natural continuity between this fast-paced ensemble show and Heins’s previous work. Offstage, he is Associate Artistic Director of innovative theatre company Outside the March. His considerable theatre credits include work at H&B/Crows Theatre, Cahoots, Canadian Stage, Stratford and Soulpepper. A graduate of the National Theatre School and Steppenwolf, he’s also the creator of No Save Points, an interactive solo show about his family’s experience with Huntington’s Disease, which won the Digital Dozen Award from Columbia and is now being adapted into a video game.
“In many ways, it’s a synthesis of all of them. 39 Steps is set in 1935, which begs its own classical sensibility, which is something I’ve loved doing in Stratford. Then, it requires actors to pretend to be hanging off of bridges, or running from gunfire, which is very much the action-sequences of No Save Points.” And the character switching is just like his acclaimed solo show Brotherhood: The Hip-Hopera, “where I’d go between four or five characters in one scene (Not that they’ll let me do that in 39 Steps. That’s for Isaiah and Kiana – lucky them!).”
What most ties the show and his prior work together, he says, is the actors’ shared commitment and connection: “It’s a show that requires an enormous amount of trust and buy-in from the ensemble of four to create our epic little mystery world. Having performed solo a lot, I love the chance to get so close with other actors and build trust. It reminds me of doing Kat Sandler’s Bang Bang, and how everybody in the cast has to listen to each other within an inch of their life, or they’ll miss a beat.” And rehearsing outdoors at the atmospheric Greek Theatre in Scarborough’s Guild Park has only deepened that connection. “I love working in such a beautiful park. We watch couples do wedding photography on the stage during our breaks. We watch birds. It all feels a bit like going off to camp with a group of fast friends!”
While the play strikes a farcical tone, the multi-national story grounded by a local protagonist feels surprisingly timely to Heins. “Richard Hannay, a Canadian, starts out in his apartment, disaffected with society and his own life (which I find refreshingly dark and mature for a comedy). This sends him on a trip to the theatre to lighten his mood. There, he meets a gorgeous woman who fires a revolver in the theatre and begs to go home with him. That night, he tries to seduce her, but when she’s murdered in his flat, he’s pulled into her world of international espionage. He’s sent on the run for his life and his liberty, bent on saving the country from covert military predation.” Rehearsing the show reminds him of the news every day, and “there’s one speech I get to give about two- thirds through the show that stuns me with its up-to-the-minute relevance every time.”
In addition to the play’s timeliness, the role offers Heins the rare chance to play a character “who changes for the better… instead of getting shot or taken to jail at the end (though for an actor, that’s fun, too!). Heins relishes playing the “good guy” for once: “Hannay’s not without his foibles, but he’s on better behaviour than some of the villains I’ve played recently.” And the show’s ethos taps into something comforting: “It feels new and familiar at the same time. I’d sometimes watch classic films at my grandparents’ house (who were in their teens and twenties in 1935). And something about the romance, the intrigue, and the manners of 39 Steps make me feel right at home.”
As the show’s two-week run begins, Heins is building on that sensibility and embracing the heat, the hijinks, and the high-energy joy of performing The 39 Steps. “We’re running around the park: changing accents and costumes on a dime, dodging planes and villains, and cracking each other up,” he enthuses.
“It’s wild. And honestly? I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
The 39 Steps runs until August 3, 2025 at the Guild Festival Theatre’s Greek Theatre. Tickets are available on guildfestival.ca.
© Arpita Ghosal, Sesaya Arts Magazine 2025
