By Michele Markarian
Noir Hamlet. Written by John Minigan. Directed by Joe Antoun. Presented by Centastage, Plaza Black Box Theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts, 539 Tremont Street, Boston, through June 30.
“There’s nothing wrong with Hamlet that a drink and a gun won’t fix”, reads the tagline on the program for Noir Hamlet. I am not sure if the line refers to the play or the actually character of Hamlet, but I’d like to think that it refers to the Shakespearean play, which, in this incarnation, contains many guns and many drinks as well as a healthy dose of humor.
Hamlet, or Little H (Paul Melendy), has taken over the Elsinore Detective Agency, formerly run by his deceased father. Little H’s nighttime reverie with a bottle at his desk – he is a little glum because he hasn’t yet had a case to solve – is interrupted by the sound of a saxophone playing. This proves to be the ghost of his father, Hamlet, who suggests that he didn’t die by his own hand and that Little H, as a detective, should try and solve the mystery of his death. Little H immediately suspects his uncle Claude (Robert D. Murphy), who has taken up with Hamlet’s widow, Gertrude (Liz Adams). Attempting to aid Little H in his detective work is Rae (Christhian Mancinas-Garcia), his father’s former secretary, also a chanteuse. As one would expect from a play called “Noir Hamlet”, things do not end well for Little H and his duplicitous family, but there are lots of laughs along the way.
Director Antoun has assembled an excellent cast that really capitalizes on the play’s humor. The very funny Paul Melendy makes great use of the fourth wall as Little H. He is a master of the rapid fire 1930s delivery; more than once during the course of the evening, I thought, “These lines would not be easy to learn”. Liz Adams is great as the tough broad mom. “Thanks for pouring breakfast”, she snarls to her boyfriend, who hands her a drink during a morning meeting with her son. Robert D. Murphy is appropriately unctuous as Claude. Christhian Mancinas-Garcia is both enigmatic and maternal as Rae. He also has a hilarious turn with a skull as Reynaldo, the undertaker. Sean Pieroth’s lighting design is nice and noirish. Stagehands, dressed in trench coats and fedoras, add to the ambiance as you see them moving through the backlit shadows of Abby Shenker’s simple yet effective set.
Noir Hamlet loosely follows the original Hamlet – there’s a shooting match between Gertrude and Little H that’s very clever – but I found myself striving to make connections that weren’t there (Rae, for example, is no Ophelia, despite a mutual attraction with Little H). There were a few nods to Oedipus and what I thought was Reservoir Dogs-inspired standoff, minus the blood, towards the end. As a play, it was a bit of a one-trick pony that eventually wore thin. What saves it is the utter charm and talent of the cast, who milk the noir for all that it’s worth. For tickets and info, go to: https://www.centastage.org/
