One of Alfred Hitchcock’s early British films gets re-imagined in a stage adaptation that pumps up the comedy while thinning down the cast, and the resulting “The 39 Steps” is a comedy cyclone. Hitchcock was known for his dry black wit, but something tells me he would’ve appreciated this unabashedly silly approach.

“The 39 Steps” opened on Broadway in 2008, and in its Oklahoma premiere, is now on stage at Oklahoma City Repertory Theatre through Sunday.

The spy thriller presents us with Richard Hannay, the unquestionably dashing hero who winds up protecting the beautiful Annabella Schmidt after shots are fired in a crowded London theater. She informs him that she’s a spy, and is on the run from people trying to steal British military secrets. Soon, Hannay is on the run from the very same people in a cross-country escapade of adventure and betrayal.

The plot is almost identical to Hitchcock's film, but with only four actors portraying hundreds of characters, the tone is ramped up to a gleeful silliness rather quickly.

Oklahoma theater stalwart Jonathan Beck Reed stars as Hannay and Hannay alone, but he's surrounded by a whirlwind of costume changes as Lexi WIndsor portrays the three women Hannay encounters, and Matthew Alvin Brown and Steve Emerson play everyone else — male, female and inanimate object.

Reed and Windsor engage in escalating over-dramatized tomfoolery, always on the verge of a massive wink to the audience. Brown and Emerson do the admirable job of creating distinct, if broad, characterizations out of every one of their minor parts.

The show reaches a fever pitch of comedy in the moments when it's most blatant about its artificiality — a train chase sequence where Brown and Emerson change hats on stage to switch between policemen, a conductor and a newspaper boy is an adroit piece of obvious physical comedy.

The show isn't as up to par in terms of its verbal dexterity, where the recurring joke is wedging titles of nearly a dozen Hitchcock films into otherwise normal dialogue. It's mildly amusing at "Rear Window" and "Strangers on a Train," but by the time we've gotten to "Family Plot," the bit is officially dead. If they had found a way to get "Juno and the Paycock" in there, then I'd be impressed.

Still, "The 39 Steps" is a wildly entertaining piece of theater. It has enough meta references and self-reflexivity to please any fan of irony, and the pace with which the cast transforms itself again and again is repeatedly astonishing.

Director Shawn Churchman keeps the madness proceeding at a digestible pace, and the result is an undeniable crowd-pleaser of a play. CityRep's production is one of the best theater opportunities in Oklahoma City this year.