Fresh Loaf

Archives | RSS

  |  
Pin It
Share

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Events The Collective Project sends up film noir with "The Red Herring"

Posted by Andrew Alexander on Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 9:22 AM

mailchimp_herring.jpg
It was a dark and stormy night... Well, more of a sunny and clear afternoon really. But a recent matinee of The Collective Project's world premiere play The Red Herring at the Goat Farm began with these words and took it from there.

The Red Herring is a spoof of 1940s and '50s noir detective flicks: The story follows Detective Stainless Danger Steel (Matthew Myers) as he investigates a case as complicated as The Big Sleep or The Maltese Falcon. It naturally involves the requisite monologuing (nights are accommodatingly dark and stormy), metaphors (fog creeps into the city like a 13-year-old rummaging through his sister's sock drawer), brassy dames, tough henchmen, and sinister crime bosses.

Melissa Oulton in The Collective Projects production of the new play The Red Herring.
  • Justin Hadley
  • Melissa Oulton in The Collective Project's production of the new play "The Red Herring."
What's most charming about the show is that it simultaneously honors the genre's conventions while sending them up. There's a reason tough-talking detectives, brassy dames, no-nonsense henchmen, and sinister crime bosses became such familiar, even laughable, archetypes: If done right, they're entertaining as hell. And the actors pull it off: they stay above easy slapstick and treat spoof with a deft touch. The Red Herring is comfortable with a foot in both worlds. Contemporary audiences may not be willing to buy a straightforward rendering of such an old-fashioned story, but, as we discover, nor are we entirely ready to let it go. The show skewers the genre but wisely allows us to enjoy—even immerse ourselves in—its conventions.

The show's deadpan delivery and spoof of vintage film put me in mind of the old In LIving Color sketch character Velma Mulholland (I can't be the only longtime fan!), but The Red Herring is actually smarter in its somewhat more affectionate handling of the resilient archetypes. The playing of live piano music throughout is a nice touch, and it lends a lot of atmospheric heft to the show, crucial for creating a noir mood: we even get a great torch song sung by a double-crossing broad in a two-bit speakeasy. The use of screens, shadows, and projection for movie tropes not easily brought to the stage, like opening credits and fixed horse races, is inventive and charming.

The Red Herring plays for one more weekend in the Rodriguez Room of the Goat Farm. It's the place to be if you like your dames brassy, plots complicated, detectives monologuing, and nights especially dark and stormy.

The Collective Project presents the world premiere of "The Red Herring" in the Rodriguez Room at the Goat Farm, 1200 Foster Street, on Thursday to Saturday, July 26-28, at 8 p.m. and on Sunday, July 29 at 2:30 p.m. For tickets or more information, visit The Collective Project

Tags: , , ,

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this thread:
By Email
With RSS

Add a comment

Latest in Fresh Loaf

More by Andrew Alexander

Search Events

all events
concerts
restaurants
movie times

Search Fresh Loaf

Recent Comments

Top Commenters

Most Popular
Most Shared
Most Commented

© 2013 Creative Loafing Atlanta
Powered by Foundation