Ann Noble\u2019s clown noir comedy \u201cDead Man\u201d had a successful run at the Hollywood Fringe Festival this June. Now, she is bringing the show back with the same cast and the same story for a three-day run.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Echo Theater Company and Theatre Ghosts present \u201cDead Man\u201d three Tuesdays \u2014 July 21, July 28 and Aug. 4 \u2014 at the Atwater Village Theatre.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Noble wrote, directed and stars in the production.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The show follows a private investigator, who is trying to solve a murder. He is investigating \u201ca crime everyone wants to forget.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a private eye, a Humphrey Bogart-type character. There is a dead man. Somebody killed the dead man, and he has to figure out who killed the dead man. But he\u2019s also a writer, so he\u2019s like a Raymond Chandler\u2026He\u2019s been trying to write a short story or a novel about his life. He\u2019s searching his memories of the stories he\u2019s written, like crumpled-up pages in his garbage can. He\u2019s trying to use his memories to solve the mystery of the dead man. He\u2019s got an intrepid secretary, a snarky secretary that gives him grief. Then, there\u2019s a femme fatale. That\u2019s who I play. There\u2019s an actor who plays the dead man. He plays a couple of different characters. He\u2019s always changing his identity. It goes in and out of the present and the past as we weave through the story,\u201d Noble said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The biggest difference with this version of the show is the staging. The Atwater Village Theatre stage is different than the Broadwater stage, where they presented during the fringe festival.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe theater is a different shape. We\u2019re moving from a thrust space into a regular proscenium space. We\u2019re just doing a little reblocking\u2026 Over the course of the run at (Hollywood) Fringe, we kept selling out, and we kept having to add chairs. So, our stage got smaller and smaller as the run went on. So, that will be the challenge in the new space. It\u2019s a little bit bigger. We\u2019ll have to lift our voices more. The audience is further away. When we talk to the audience, that\u2019s more of a reach,\u201d Noble said. \u00a0<\/p>\n
All of the characters in the show are clowns, but they aren\u2019t dressed up in full makeup and costuming.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only thing that would tell you it\u2019s a clown show is we\u2019re all wearing noses. Everything else is completely is in the noir film noir style. We\u2019re all in black and white, the very sleek 1930s\/1940s style. It would be like watching \u2018The Maltese Falcon,\u2019 but we all have clown noses on,\u201d Noble said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Noble has now done four clown shows. She started writing them around the height of COVID-19.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey all have an element of not being sure what\u2019s really real. Is this the real world, or is it not the real world? Who are we exactly? Are we this clown, or are we a person pretending to be a clown? I\u2019m always playing with that reality\u2026 When you put on a clown nose, then people know it\u2019s going to be funny. They open their minds. It\u2019s like watching an animated film. When you watch animation, you\u2019re much more open because you know it\u2019s not real, but somehow it allows more truth to come in,\u201d Noble said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Noble is not trained in clowning but has done mask work and Commedia dell\u2019arte.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you put on a clown nose, it\u2019s a bit like wearing a mask. It gives you freedom as an actor to be less you and more you at the same time. It allows for an element of the absurd to come in,\u201d Noble said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Along with Noble as the femme fatale character, the production stars Jeffrey Johnson as the private detective, Robin McDonald as the secretary and Christian Haines as the dead man and other characters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Noble wanted to keep the same cast because the parts were written specifically for the actors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI write for their kind of comedy, their sense of humor, their sense of drama, their energy, their tone of voice. They\u2019re all people I know well, so I know them as human beings as well as actors. I don\u2019t know if I can describe it exactly, but definitely I write for their beingness and their artistic sensibilities,\u201d Noble said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Noble wanted to feature actors that fit well together but all bring their own individual strengths.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say that they\u2019re all different instruments, but they\u2019re definitely all string instruments. So, they go well together. They can play in the same kind of style, but they are all very different within that\u2026. It\u2019s in a noir style, so it has a heightened quality to it. I needed actors who could do that but also have the depth and have the chops to go deep and to make it really real as well. So, they have to be very dexterous actors,\u201d Noble said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For the show, the actors wear their own attire. Noble already had shoes from the time period.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe guys have suits, vests, trench coats and hats. The secretary wears a little gray suit\u2026 If you saw us in a lineup, we\u2019d look right out of the movies,\u201d Noble said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There were some 1930s-\u201940s props that they had to search for, such as an ashtray and typewriter that looked like they came from that era.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause it is clown, some of the items can be a little more exaggerated or be not exactly right on, and it still works,\u201d Noble said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Everything in the show had to fit with the noir color scheme, which is black and white with a hint of red.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Noble has long been a fan of the film noir style. Some of her favorite noir films are \u201cSweet Smell of Success,\u201d \u201cDetour,\u201d \u201cThe Maltese Falcon\u201d and \u201cGilda.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI watched a whole bunch last summer when I was percolating on the idea. Whenever I get an idea for a show or for a play, I try to research the style or the world I\u2019m thinking of immersing it in,\u201d Noble said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Noble wanted to bring a show that looked and sounded similar to the dark, gritty crime dramas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the tropes are there, all the fun references, the idiomatic expressions, the banter, the guns, the lighting, the style, the music,\u201d Noble said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Noble said that the film noir style translates well for theater.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLead characters would narrate what they were doing. That\u2019s actually very theatrical. In film noir, movies were done more like plays. They had longer scenes, longer shots. They didn\u2019t switch camera angles around a lot because they couldn\u2019t. So, it\u2019s not that far of a leap actually,\u201d Noble said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Noble has found that there is a definite appreciation for the film noir style in LA.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s such an iconic era, especially for Hollywood\u2026Los Angeles and New York are the hubs of the noir world. I think it\u2019s nostalgia for a golden age, and everybody loves a mystery. People really responded to it. Our audiences really, really loved it, and a lot of people are coming back to see it again\u2026 There is a mystery and a twist in it. A lot of people want to come back and see if they can see the mystery from the beginning,\u201d Noble said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ann Noble\u2019s clown noir comedy \u201cDead Man\u201d had a successful run at the Hollywood Fringe Festival this June.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[167320,126008,1924,167318,22829,48,52,51,47,50,49,167319],"class_list":["post-418259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-ann-noble","tag-echo-theater-company","tag-film","tag-film-noir","tag-ghosts","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-theatre-ghosts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}