Come take a big bite out of this black comedy by Mark McDonagh this weekend!
Exceedingly dark humor, hopeless circumstances, and expletives galore –sound appealing? Then the NOLA Project’s A Behanding in Spokane is FOR YOU!
It’s a 90-minute, high-octane peek into a man’s desperate search for a little something he lost 27 years ago (I’m sure you can guess) and his encounter with a couple of punk kids who attempt to dupe him for a cool $500. Why anyone would think you could trick someone into thinking another person’s left hand is his or her own is beyond me, but you’ve got to admit, it’s one helluvan intriguing plot!
The play was written by Martin McDonagh as his first foray into a piece in an American setting and premiered on Broadway in 2010 at the Schoenfeld Theater. The AllWays Lounge and Theatre’s on St. Claude Avenue’s stage is transformed into the stained, musty, creaking innards of a rundown motel:
Yellowed light fixtures throughout and a beautiful, busted neon sign just beyond the windowsill complemented the Sketchville, USA aesthetic as an old and miniature television set played a random and eerie mash-up of clips. The sound of an oncoming train charging through as the filmy fixtures flickered and dimmed gave me a liquefying chill—macabre phantasma! Now, that’s how you start a play before it even begins!
If the stellar attention to detail by NOLA Project’s design team doesn’t win you over, this just might:
1. The production eases you in as far as the complete unfolding of the plot is concerned but not in its pacing.
Right off the bat, you’re elbows-deep in the gruesome melancholy of the main character, Carmichael, who makes you wonder whether or not he was already mentally unhinged before playing an almost 3-decades long game of who-took-my-hand? The energy of the piece is frenetic and ill at ease. Even when you’re laughing (and you will be), you’re holding back, just a little, in anticipation of things taking a sudden and sharp turn for the worst. You’ll be right more than half of the time.
2. The character dynamics are hilarious, fascinating, and NOT for the faint of heart.
If hearing the ‘n’ word within the context of a work (myself being a woman of color can say I survived it), heaven forbid the sight of a severed limb, makes you squeamish, or if a prop gun being fired and constant swearing turns you off completely, this play isn’t for you. But I will tell you this: you’ll be missing some dayum fine acting. Consisting of 4 characters (well…technically 5. You’ll see), the relationship dynamics within this piece are full-bodied, clearly defined, and honest, despite the bizarreness of the situation in which they’ve found themselves. There were moments I sincerely felt I was watching a Quentin Tarantino film live!
Twisted and funny as all get-out with hit-it-n-quit-it quickness: you know you want it.
GO GET IT!
1 performance weekend left!
Friday, January 20 through Sunday, January 22 @ 8PM | AllWays Lounge & Theatre, 2240 St. Claude Ave.
RSVP to Facebook
BUY tickets online
xoxo-Moni
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Monica Harris is a professional theatre artist and all-around go-getter. Originally from Angeles City, Philippines and raised in Fort Worth, TX, she is a proud New Orleanian who, between the 2-job hustle, lives the Bohemian dream.
