Saturday March 30, 2024
Noir
Review

Noir

By Damian Madden
April 10 2007

Meow Media is a new theatre company set up to present plays of afilmic nature. It is ironic then – if not surprising - that theirfirst play, Peter Straughan's Noir, would probably work betteras a film. Perhaps if Meow Media produced films they'd be onto awinner with this tale of deception, intrigue, gambling and murder, butthey don't, so what they're left with is a play that never really getsto where it wants to go.

The main problem with the play is its structure, it jumps around intime (while telling an overly complex story) for no reason other thanto be clever and in doing so confuses a sizeable portion of theaudience. The evening I was there an audience member loudly announcedat intermission "Does anyone in here know what’s going on?" Plenty ofempty seats for the second half suggested people didn’t know anddidn’t care to find out.

Although the play comes together at the end (and it does in a nicepiece of staging) it is by then irrelevant. Five minutes of sense donot make up for one hundred and fifteen minutes of nonsense. Theproblems with the play's structure aren't helped by scene changes thatare anything but smooth, sound effects and music that are out of syncwith the action, the stage manager (who doubles as a character)alerting the audience as to when certain scenes occur within theplay’s narrative and an industrial inspired set full of scaffoldingand chicken wire that looks like it is still being bumped in.

The cast of mostly young, up and coming actors (including someHome and Away escapees) do their best with the material withWayne Tunks a stand-out as a Samaritan who is obsessed with reworkingpopular songs so that they proclaim God. While some seem to strugglegreatly with the material in the first half, which is surely as muchto do with the script as anything else, they do manage to pull ittogether in the end. However, by then it is too little too late.

Noir clearly demonstrates the difference between film andtheatre and the inherent problems of trying to make one into theother. It’s just not going to happen.

Noir

Noir is playing at the PACT Theatre until the 22nd of April. Tickets are available through MCA Tix

You can hear an audio interview with Noir star Christie Hayes in Episode 18 of StageCast and an interview with director Dana-Lee Mierowsky in Episode 20.

StageNoise.com also produced a video detailing the rehearsal of Noir.

 

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