The Ruckus gets ready to TELL IT...

Game on.

From playwright Mitch Vermeersch

It would be difficult to imagine film noir without the smoking. The cigarette is a visual element of the films as quintessential and recognizable as the fedora or the silhouette.

One reason for this is the clever way in which directors used cigarettes for elegantly crafted character moments. In Jules Dassin’s beautiful film Theive’s Highway, Valentina Cortese produces a cigarette she hopes Richard Conte will light for her. He declines. Ignoring the fifteen or so matches that have been lit and held out to her by hopeful male patrons, she takes the cigarette from his mouth and suggestively lights her own smoke off the burning end of his. These are the moments that characterize film noir. It would be difficult to imagine the stalwart noir detective without a burning cigarette firmly planted in his countenance. The same goes for the lusciously villainous femme fatale. What else is she going to do with those sexy, gloved fingers?

But what would it look like if you were forced to remove the cigarette from the noir film? Humphrey Bogart walks into a bar from the street and takes a seat alone amid the swirling maelstrom of greased hair and wild dresses. There is a rhumba band playing and people are dancing but he is too solitary and world-weary to dance. The bartender brings him a glass of dark dark liquor as he surveys the room for the crook he’s tailing, all the while looking out for the girl who’s tailing him. He is a man at once within and detached from the room. To calm himself he reaches into his jacket pocket and casually pulls out his pack of… gum. He lets a stick dangle coolly from his lips, tastes the soothing menthol soon to fill his mouth with minty freshness… sounds silly doesn’t it?

My point is that to take the cigarettes out of film noir would be like taking the color gels out of a theater. You could get along fine without them, but the aesthetic of a lot of plays would likely feel very awkward. However in this city, as in many others, they’ve taken the smoking out of everything. Including the theater. See a production of Glengarry Glenross and the masculine, hard smoking real estate agents (if they’re lucky) will be exhaling electronically controlled water vapor or (if they’re not lucky) thin rolls of bubble gum candy wrapped to look like Marlboro Reds. Because Heist Play is inspired and informed by the world of film noir, to remove the smoking from the world of the play would have felt somewhat unjust. Thusly, we’re forced to find creative ways to portray smoking, and you’ll have to forgive us for any gaps in the authenticity of our substitutions.

Personally, I am a stickler for authenticity when it comes to things like this, but I can’t bring myself to argue with the reasoning behind this obstacle. There are many good reasons why so many major cities have instituted smoking bans. There are many good reasons not to smoke. Noir films were made at a time when smoking was a much more accepted and universal habit. Today, children come out of the womb familiar with the inherent health risks. There are, however, those of us who still enjoy it, and the culture of smoking today is much different than in the days of noir. In non-smoking cities like this one, smokers gather at regular intervals outside public buildings in small congregations. At once within and detached from the population, these congregations meet to talk about nothing in particular. They are united only by the individual enjoyment they get from partaking in a particular vice, an enjoyment not unlike the kind I feel watching noir movies, films populated by lonely characters whose flaws and personal interests set them apart from the public at large.

Desire for a particular vice sometimes forces you to be creative when it comes to getting your fix. It is this desire that occasionally sends me on extensive searches for hard to find noir titles. It sends smokers out of doors to find small, secluded corners where they can smoke among those who share the same interest. Vice breeds a strange congregation, but it’s a congregation that, like most, is ever willing to welcome a newcomer. Smokers light smokes for other smokers today the same way they did in the days of Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe.

And so when Heist Play opens on Sunday, you will find me standing outside the Side Project Theater smoking to calm my nerves during the act breaks with a handful of people who find enjoyment in the same silly activity as myself. That cigarette will end, the way all cigarettes do, and I will head back inside to take my place among a crowd of people united only by the strange enjoyment they get from watching a cast of actors tell stories onstage with fake liquor, plastic pistols, and bubble gum cigarettes.

Come see Heist Play. The space is small and tickets are going fast.

From director Allison Shoemaker

When people make ‘noir-esque’ movies today, what they mean is that they look like film noir, or the dialogue is similar in rhythm and cadence -- essentially, they’re talking about style. There are a lot of remarkable movies that fall into this category. I was entertained as hell by 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ and ‘Brick.’ ‘L.A. Confidential’ and ‘The Man Who Wasn’t There’ are both beautifully shot and incredibly evocative of the genre. Here’s the thing, though: when film noir movies were being made, it wasn’t just about the style. That was a huge part of it, yes, but so was moral ambiguity and characters that refuse to inhabit a world in which one can be truly good or purely evil. The movies we now call film noir were about failed redemption, about what it is to be unable or unwilling to assert your own destiny and avoid damnation. They were about the clever banter, certainly, but also about what happens in the air between the words. When I started to think about what contemporary examples we have of that fundamental aspect of the noir tradition, a scene popped into my mind.

At the risk of sounding like an entry in ‘Stuff White People Like,’ I have to say -- I think The Wire might be the best show in the history of television. At the very least, it’s the closest thing to film noir we’ve seen this decade. As a result, it’s been on my mind a lot lately. (Fellow fans can listen for the theme song in ‘Heist Play’.) A lot of factors went in to making The Wire what it was -- talented writers, a devoted, adventurous and mostly unknown cast, a network brave enough to produce a show where the most heroic character is a gay stick-up boy who only robs drug dealers and lives by a code. This is a show you actually have to learn how to watch. You expect it to be one thing, and it’s not. It’s more. It’s a novel. It’s an epic.

I can’t exactly say I’ve stolen things from ‘The Wire’ for ‘Heist’, but it has certainly informed my work. When Katie Canavan and I started talking about Dietrich, we talked about cops who want but aren’t sure how to be more, and I was thinking of poor Beadie Russell. When Josh Davis was working to find how exactly Nick is altered when he’s drinking, Jimmy McNulty was swimming in booze through my head. When I talk, or rhapsodize, really, to my cast about the amazing things Mitch does with language, with such simple words and the great meaning they convey, I think of that scene where D’Angelo Barksdale teaches Bodie and Wallace and Poot about how chess works using the drug trade to communicate the ideas, and the total lack of expression on each of their faces as they begin to talk about the pawns. And when I want to remind myself to think about the remarkable things you can do with great characters and great actors, I think about that amazing scene in season one when McNulty and the Bunk go to investigate a crime scene that was royally botched by the first set of police who looked it over, and figure the whole damn crime out, and talk it through and figure it out, and they only ever say ‘f*ck’ and its many derivatives. Talk about inventiveness.

*

We’re a few days out from opening now. We’re close enough to opening that I am just now getting around to writing this thing I’ve been so stoked about writing. We’ve found the props (or most of them) and fitted the costumes and taped the floors. We’ve emptied a 12-pack of Old Style and need to empty many many cans of Coors Light in the next few days (for props, I swear). We’ve gotten it done. It’s a terrifying and exhilarating feeling.

It’s been a real privilege to work on ‘Heist Play’. I’ve known many of the people involved for many years, and hope to know the new ones for many more. (Katie Canavan stole my blog idea -- but how many Odes to Starbird or Melton or Stulik can one blog take? Anthem of Hornreich and Dean, perhaps?) We of The Ruckus are so fortunate to be working with such a remarkable cast and crew, and I can’t wait for the world at large to see the remarkable work they’ve been doing. I’m proud and inspired and humbled and wildly entertained. Not a bad deal, if you ask me.

Last but far from least, I’m so lucky to be working elbow to elbow with Mitch Vermeersch again. In a world of style-but-no-substance, Mitch creates these truly original plays that never fail to surprise. In ‘Heist Play’, Mitch gets to convey his love of film noir through Nick, and the passion and fascination he feels is so clearly conveyed that it cant’ help but be contagious. His braveness in breaking rules of structure and in allowing characters to be ugly people who do ugly things has created a genuinely unique work of art that has inspired me to be better and do more, and has done the same for our remarkable cast. I can’t wait for ya’ll to see it.

Back to work. Oh my wow, I hate and love scene changes. But mostly hate. But mostly love.

From Playwright Mitch Vermeersch

One of the cool things about writing a play is that you get to justify as “research” what others might call “profound waste of time.” Over the past few months I’ve spent a despicable amount of time watching noir films as research for Heist Play and I’ve come across a lot that I think everyone should see because they’re awesome. There are many more great movies than I could cover in one post, but for this entry I thought I would just mention a few that I think are very cool and worth checking out.

Double Indemnity – A noir classic and one of my favorite movies. Double Indemnity exemplifies what makes film noir film noir: doomed love, murder, the perfect crime, first person narration, flashback structure, stylistic cinematography. Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck and Edward G. Robinson are brilliant and the dialogue is some of the best in all of film noir.

Gun Crazy – A precursor to Bonnie and Clyde, this movie follows the tragic love affair of a couple whose love for each other is matched only by their love of guns. Shocking for its day, the cinematography in this film takes steps that are way ahead of its time. The famous one-take Hampton Robbery sequence alone is reason enough to watch.

Detour – While noir films were traditionally low budget movies, Detour makes the Maltese Falcon look like Pirates of the Caribbean. Shot in six days, Edgar G. Ulmer’s incredibly sparse and fatalistic tragedy about a traveling man whose every move seems cursed by bad luck is creepy creepy creepy and will leave you feeling paranoid for days.

Rififi – This one set the standard for all heist films to come. Jules Dassin’s direction of this French movie is astounding not only for his typically gorgeous visuals, but for the unbelievable suspense he creates. The famous heist sequence runs a quarter of the film’s length without music or dialogue, and manages to be one of the most captivating scenes I’ve ever watched.

Leave Her to Heaven –Despite being shot in color, this movie is typically referred to as a part of the noir cycle because of Gene Tierney’s terrifying portrayal of Ellen Berent, a femme fatale that will scare the crap out of you. Without spoiling anything, the silent drowning sequence in this film still gives me chills.

These are just a few. I will go into more in the next entry. However as it is late and I cannot think of a clever way to end this one, I will close with a chunk of dialogue from Double Indemnity. This is one of many reasons why I love film noir:

Neff: I wish you’d tell me what’s engraved on that anklet.

Phyllis: Just my name.

Neff: As for instance?

Phyllis: Phyllis.

Neff: Phyllis, huh. I think I like that.

Phyllis: But you’re not sure.

Neff: I’d have to drive it around the block a couple of times.

Phyllis: Mr. Neff, why don’t you drop by tomorrow evening around 8:30. He’ll be in then.

Neff: Who?

Phyllis: My husband. You were anxious to talk to him, weren’t you?

Neff: Yeah, I was. But I’m sort of getting over the idea, if you know what I mean.

Phyllis: There’s a speed limit in this state, Mr. Neff, 45 miles an hour.

Neff: How fast was I going, Officer?

Phyllis: I’d say around 90.

Neff: Suppose you get down off your motorcycle and give me a ticket.

Phyllis: Suppose I let you off with a warning this time.

Neff: Suppose it doesn’t take.

Phyllis: Suppose I have to whack you over the knuckles.

Neff: Suppose I bust out crying and put my head on your shoulder.

Phyllis: Suppose you try putting it on my husband’s shoulder.

Neff: That tears it…

Excerpts from a wrecked encyclopedia discovered in an abandoned skyscraper in Detroit, Michigan—many pages unreadable, many pages missing, misordered

CLEAVE. Word of two opposing meanings. To cling to something tightly. To separate from something by force. Seems to have sway over those who come in contact with it. Source of power as of yet undetected. Prominently featured in ‘The Lost Dictionary of Benjamin C. Lark.’ In physical form, the word takes residence in the guts of those foolish enough to attempt both meanings simultaneously and sweats and bites. The condition is highly unpleasant and of undetermined permanence. See also: LARK, BENJAMIN C; PEEL, DR. NORMAN; SELF-AMPUTATION.

CONSPIRACY FORTNIGHTLY. Factuality and neutrality questionable. Contains useful advertisements. See also: MILLER, SETH (II); MIDWESTERN [TEXT UNREADABLE].

[PAGES MISSING]

HAROLD. Lover of Test. Self-amputee. Astronomer. Worked in the now-defunct Hudson’s department store in downtown Detroit selling carburetors. Developed a series of detachable arms called ‘actionable limb replacements,’ which improved [TEXT UNREADABLE]. With Test, frequently referred to in myth as ‘The Limbless Lovers.’ See also: TEST; SELF-AMPUTATION; LIMBLESS LOVERS, THE; LIEBCHEN, THE.

LARK, BENJAMIN C. Renowned linguist and philosopher. Reclusive and unknown in his lifetime; achieved fame posthumously after the discovery of ‘The Lost Dictionary of Benjamin C. Lark’ in 2007. Rumored to be omniscient; this is largely considered a fabrication concocted by the creators of Conspiracy Fortnightly to sell magazines. One of the first people to make record of the remarkable and inexplicable power of the word ‘cleave’; considered [TEXT UNREADABLE]. Made considerable advances in clarifying the nature and purpose of language. Mother, Katrina, drowned when Lark was still very young. See also: LOST DICTIONARY OF BENJAMIN C. LARK, THE; CLEAVE.

LIEBCHEN, THE. Self-steering boat. Captained by the Limbless Lovers. Ownership prior to this unclear. Creation unclear. Source of power unclear. May be sentient. See also: HAROLD; TEST; CASSIOPEIA; LIMBLESS LOVERS, THE.

LIMBLESS LOVERS, THE. In legend and myth, refers to Harold and Test. Lovers who could not find a way to get out of each others hearts and minds; attempted to end things by amputating each others arms. Each instead chose self-amputation, thus popularizing the form as a means of transferring emptiness from heart to phantom limb. Travel in a self-steering boat, the Liebchen, helping those who need it. Acquisition of boat unknown. See also: HAROLD; TEST; SELF-AMPUTATION; LIEBCHEN, THE.

MILLER, SETH. (I) Philosopher. Gentleman. Scholar. Rumored to have given [TEXT UNREADABLE]. See also: AKBAR, GHAFIR; CASSIOPEIA; TELEPATHY.

MILLER, SETH. (II) Son of a traveling salesman. Divorced with no prospects for re-marriage, has no children. Dresses badly and walks like a duck. Former reporter for ‘Conspiracy Fortnightly’. Sometime fisherman; fondness for moonfish. See also: PEEL, DOCTOR NORMAN; HOTEL YORBA; MIDWESTERN INSTITUTE FOR CONSPIRATORIAL RESEARCH.

MOUSE, THE. Detective. In the nineties, worked in the now-defunct Hudson’s department store in downtown Detroit serving Coneys. Former lover of Dr. Norman Peel. See also: PEEL, DR. NORMAN.

PEEL, DR. NORMAN. Symbiotic relationship with [PAGE MISSING].

[PAGES MISSING]

SELF-AMPUTATION. Cultural phenomenon frequently employed by those with a need for permanent separation of one kind or another. Painful. A tight string or rubber tube is required to prevent as much bleeding as possible. Amputees experience a phantom limb sensation that reminds them of days spent throwing footballs, holding cocktails, juggling fruit. The first cut is the most difficult. Popularized by the legend of the Limbless Lovers. Difficulty of living with the resulting condition can be corrected with actionable limb replacements. Phenomenon seems to be connected to the word ‘cleave’; this is as of yet unproven. See also: HAROLD; TEST; PEEL, DR. NORMAN; MILLER, SETH (II); LIMBLESS LOVERS, THE; ACTIONABLE LIMB REPLACEMENTS; CLEAVE.

TEST. Lover of Harold. Astronomer. Self-amputee. Constellation [TEXT UNREADABLE]. In the nineties, worked in the now-defunct Hudson’s department store in downtown Detroit with Harold and The Mouse selling perfume. With Harold, frequently referred to in myth and legend as ‘The Limbless Lovers.’ Co-captain of the Liebchen, a self-steering boat. Sometime painter. See also: HAROLD; SELF-AMPUTATION; LIMBLESS LOVERS, THE; LIEBCHEN, THE.

[PAGES MISSING]

LOST DICTIONARY OF BENJAMIN C. LARK, THE. Created by renowned linguist Benjamin C. Lark, who received posthumous recognition for his advances in clarifying the nature and purpose of language. While many facsimile copies have been printed, all are modeled on the legendary original—a copy of the 1992 American Heritage English Dictionary, in which many words have been crossed out, others added, and nearly all redefined. Those that remained untouched include ‘apple’, ‘frog’, ‘baseball’ and ‘help’. Lark’s treatment of ‘cleave’ is largely responsible for the mythology surrounding the word. The original copy is rumored to have significant power; it is unclear how much of legend surrounding the tome is true and how much was fabricated by Conspiracy Fortnightly. Original sustained water damage at some point; when or how is unclear. See also: PEEL, DR. NORMAN; LARK, BENJAMIN C; MILLER, SETH (II); CLEAVE; [TEXT UNREADABLE].

by Ryan Dolley, Allison Shoemaker and Mitch Vermeersch. First published in admit2, November 2007.




----------------
Now playing: The Weakerthans - Aside
via FoxyTunes