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Theater review: 'Kill Me, Deadly' at Theatre of NOTE
2:00 PM, July 9, 2009
Like one of its hot lead telegrams from the business end of a Smith and Wesson, "Kill Me, Deadly" at
Theatre of NOTE
delivers the goods in spades. Set in 1947 Hollywood, where life is as
cheap as a chalk-stripe suit, Bill Robens' smart, snappy parody of
hard-boiled noir comes complete with jaded gumshoe, a dame in distress
-- and plenty of
moid-ah.
As Charlie Nickels, the shamus with low morals and high ideals, Dean
Lemont has the hangdog mug and rugged bearing befitting a man for whom
opportunity usually knocks with a punch in the gut. Charlie may not be
the sharpest shiv in the cutlery collection -- his wise-cracking
secretary (Lynn Odell) supplies the real crime-solving brainpower --
but he's been around the track and breezes his way through the
hyperbolic similes in the tongue-twisting Raymond Chandler-esque
narration.
Charlie's latest case involves a 300-karat blood-red diamond (that
comes with a curse, natch) and a menaced widow (Kathleen Mary Carthy)
who's lousy with dough and hated by all. At the center of the intrigue
sits scarlet-clad femme fatale Mona, a nightclub torch singer and
vibraphonist vamped to the hilt by hilarious Kirsten Vangsness (on the
lam from TV's "Criminal Minds"). "I try to be good, I really do," she
pouts in spot-on Judy Garland intonations, "but who has time these
days?" Charlie may be a chump for letting down his guard, but like he
says, "falling in love with a broad you can trust is like reading a
book you already know the ending to."
Kiff Scholl's stylized staging employs period props, directed
lighting, and, when needed, cheesy video effects like the hypnodisc
spiraling above the drugged Charlie's head during his hallucinatory
roundup of suspects: the client's smarmy bookworm son (Nicholas S.
Williams), her equestrian daughter (Megan Bartle, a Lauren Bacall blond
with gams that stretch to Tijuana), their snooty British butler (Ezra
Buzzington), an erudite gardener (Phinneas Kiyomura), and the hired
muscle (Darrett Sanders) who feels really, really bad about having to
get rough. In a line of work where people typically pass out or die
just before giving you the one piece of information you need the most,
the question is: Which of these low-lifes are headed for the big sleep?
Don't be a sap -- see this one and find out.
-- Philip Brandes"
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