Ann Noble and Jeffrey Johnson (Photo by Carolina Rodriguez)
Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
The Echo Theater Company and Theatre Ghosts at Atwater Village Theatre
Through August 4
RECOMMENDED
Ann Noble and Robin McDonald (Photo by Carolina Rodriguez)
Sometimes a dose of silliness is the best antidote for a bleak discouraging world.
Dead Man, the latest in a series of clown-peopled-plays by playwright/director Ann Noble, fits that bill — at least for most of its one-hour run. It’s a satiric take on the Raymond Chandler detective genre, about a buffoonish private eye, Hopper Jones (Jeffrey Johnson), and his inept efforts to solve the mystery surrounding an anonymous dead body, while actively pursuing his aspirations to be a writer of — what else? — dime-store detective stories.
As with any Philip Marlowe burlesque, the sleuth has a secretary (Robin McDonald), in this case a frumpy ex-Brooklynite who’s sharper than her boss and frequently corrects him with a snappish, wearied tongue. Hopper also tangles with a sexy blonde femme fatale (Noble), who manipulates him with her wiles, while repeatedly fumbling his encounters with the villain of the piece (Christopher Haines. who does multiple duty as the dead man and a bartender.)
As a murder mystery, the story makes little sense, but then this is a clown show; its pleasures derive from Noble’s clever, goofy lampooning of the genre and of human behavior in general —specifically hubris and (it’s an old canard but it still works) the susceptibility of some male individuals to a combination of flattery and curves. Noble’s waggish script is filled with a hilarious series of ludicrous metaphors that Hopper embeds — or considers embedding — in his text. And the ensemble hits the comic mark, both individually and collectively — with these artists, a simple lift or furrow of the brow is enough to inspire a laugh. It’s an hour of blessedly distracting foolishness.
Almost. A twist at the end transports the narrative to a more poignant realm, enriching the story but at the price of a wake-up call that the real world hasn’t gone away.
Echo Theater Company and Theater Ghosts, Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., Atwater; Tues., 8 pm; thru Aug. 4. https://EchoTheaterCompany.com Runtime: one hour.
