Back in 1995, a pair of British writers named Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon took an old Alfred Hitchcock movie about an innocent guy on the run and turned it into a wild, challenging ride for four live actors. Even though the 1935 movie, which was based on a novel by John Buchan (once the governor general of Canada), had scores of characters and locations from London to the Flying Scotsman train to the remote Highlands, four Monty Python-esque performers played everyone from music hall performers to crofters and sheriffs to children.

The joke in this hit farce was the implausibility of their collective task. “The 39 Steps” was rewritten again by Patrick Barlow in 2005 and, ever since, it has been, as the British like to say, “a good little earner.”

I last saw “The 39 Steps” at the Drury Lane Theatre in Oakbrook Terrace in 2012; that’s the very theater doing this show again this summer, presumably on the theory that memories are short. This time, the show is under the direction of Johanna McKenzie Miller and stars the Broadway actor Gavin Lee as the main hero, along with Caitlin Gallogly, Zuhdi Boueri and Tom Detrinis (all visiting actors) playing the rest of the roles. To be frank, this new production is not as good as the previous effort, notwithstanding the formidable comedic talent on the stage, beginning with Lee, a bona fide star well known for (among other things) his very delicious Squidward in “SpongeBob SquarePants.”

There are three problems. One is that the show moves too slowly. Another is that the overarching storytelling just isn’t clear enough. In order for the farce to be funny, the audience has to know what is going on it that which is being spoofed. And some people around me did not.

The third is that the new production seems to miss the main joke, which is that the actors have been given a herculean task here and the fun comes with the audience empathizing with their struggles. To put that another way, the cast is not just playing the characters, it is also playing four actors with an absurd assignment and in order for that to work, the audience has to invest in the enormity of that task. Here, and with only a few exceptions, we’re just not in enough on the big joke and also we don’t feel the emotional weight of what is being attempted (unlike, say, as we do at the hilarious “Peter Pan Goes Wrong” on Broadway or as ideally is the case at the Charles Ludlam classic “The Mystery of Irma Vep,” arguably the first to come up with this idea).

All that said, fans of old-school British farce will likely have a few good laughs in the company of highly skilled physical actors working clever material. The individual scenes in this show are very deftly performed on Angie Weber Miller’s set, it’s the big picture that still needs the work.

Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.

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Review: “The 39 Steps” (2.5 stars)

When: Through Aug. 13

Where: Drury Lane Theatre, 100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace

Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes

Tickets: $85-$95 at 630-530-0111 and www.drurylanetheatre.com