Thrills Guaranteed

This play is not for the faint-hearted. In Patrick Schimanski's production, four actors take on a total of more than a hundred roles between them — Martin Semmelrogge alone playing over 20 of them. But that can't faze the experienced actor. "I'm a professional, after all; that's no problem. Of course it means a lot of quick costume changes, and nothing must go wrong there." He is, however, already learning the text for these twenty roles. After all, sixty pages aren't memorised as quickly as the choreography of the costume changes. The Bad Hersfelder Festspiele bring Alfred Hitchcock's film classic to the stage as a furious theatrical delight. Set somewhere between Monty Python and Samuel Beckett, lonely people who all dream of another, wilder life become entangled in a story of the kind we know from the film noir era: a beautiful woman whispers a secret piece of information into the ear of a bored variety-show patron, and two hours later he finds her on his sofa with a knife in her back. Suspected of murder, sought by the police, hunted by criminals, the man who "knew too much" can only escape his pursuers if he himself can unravel the secret of the "39 Steps" and prove his innocence. "It's going to be a mix of comedy and gunfire. Thrilling, in any case," Martin Semmelrogge says, already looking forward to it. The play celebrates its premiere on 15 July 2017 at Schloss Eichhof. "The 39 Steps", Schloss Eichhof: 15 July 2017 – 13 August 2017