Red Noses in Chicago
Events / 5/17/2009 6:51:32 PM
Back with more of the expanding dark and disturbing Chicago theatre scene is our resident theatre expert, C.S.E. Cooney. Not the typical horror fare, this play leaves you laughing and crying at the same time!
I will never look at the color yellow the same way again.
I have been debating whether or not "Red Noses" - Strawdog Theatre's current production - was appropriate for a Killer-Works article. After all, how can something so desperately funny be horrific? The answer: Why, with exhaustive quantities of greasy yellow plague puke, a body count James Bond would envy, busy bludgeons, sly knives, sarcastic popes and the deep treachery of friends -- quite beautifully, actually!
"Red Noses" by British playwright Peter Barnes, directed by Matt Hawkins, is a story "about religion and violence... order, chaos, sacrifice and community." It is also about making you laugh so hard you're weeping, and then just making you weep. There are songs, accompanied by the actors on instruments ranging from guitar to xylophone to cello. There is dance - even, at one point, dancing zombies! There are soaring monologues, plays within plays, and an ensemble so sharp it will cut you.
Raven girls in black war-paint, like fishnetted Furies, speak in ragged chorus and suck the juice from the buboes of the dead. A nun with a voice like a velveted cathedral bell will in one minute scold two rogue soldiers for neglecting to rape her, and in the next lament the loss of her beloved. A slight, unassuming priest in a thin blue hoodie sees God (who may or may not be a child-clown on a tricycle) and puts on a red nose in order to bring comfort to a world ravaged by pestilence. Of course, all acts of rebellion and goodness have their consequences.
From the moment I entered the Strawdog's theatre space, I fell into a kind of happy chaos. The actors were onstage already, in jeans and t-shirts, playing a game of ball that followed no observable logic and that just got louder and funnier the closer we came to curtain. That energy level remained and built throughout, holding me tense and enraptured. The sets and costumes were plain but suggestive; they showed the blood well.
As with all my experiences of great theatre, I came out of "Red Noses" pissed off and happy, feeling like I was about to fly off a cliff, or break into a thousand pieces. I wanted to laugh and dance and sit on the sidewalk and sob. I was, as one of the Red Noses put it, ready to "eat the world."
I cannot recommend this play strongly enough.
C.S.E.Cooney
p.s. You can find more about Chicago's Red Noses and The Straw Dog Theatre here.
