Lee Cortopassi's 'The Big'

Success, of course, is not guaranteed.

Style over substance and story

The Big tries to achieve "farce noir" (the production's label, not mine) by poking fun at film noir's tired tropes. A detective and a criminal, both tough-talking stereotypes, fall for a sultry dame. Rather than spoofing noir by accurately exaggerating it, however, Cortopassi's script adds a silly element of malapropisms, exaggerations, and toilet humor that doesn't fit the characters or the style.

Andrew Block plays detective Frank Springfield, smitten with red-dressed Dana Kreitz as Scotch Esperanza; the name is Cortopassi's best creation, dulled by being repeated ten thousand times. She's entangled with Cortopassi, who plays crime boss Matty McFadden, but has tired of his undelivered promise of a movie career.

While their costumes match noir standards, their dialogue descends into silliness. "I'm going to go to the toilet and pee in it," says McFadden, which might score a chortle in a third-grade classroom. Springfield asks Scotch, "Do you want to make slow sex for six minutes and then watch me cry, or not?" Blech. All three talk about doing "the sex," as if English is their second language. Writing down such nonsense helped me survive The Big's interminable 3,600 seconds -- but just barely.

Wrong direction

They say a defendant who represents himself has a fool for a client, and often the same is true for the writer/actor who directs himself -- except he also condemns his fellow actors. Cortopassi's staging makes no accommodation for the audience on three sides, and has the cast pantomiming inconsistently and awkwardly. Scotch leans against an invisible bar in what resembles a painful yoga pose, while also sometimes pointlessly moving furniture; a little table moves so often it becomes the play's most dynamic character.

The flat set, with furniture lined up against its wall, boasts a neat vintage-looking clock, but since the play requires many locations, it doesn't establish place or time. John Allerheiligen's lighting offers some noir flourishes, but competes with a bare-bulbed table lamp pointlessly blazing in many scenes. The period music is just background clutter, never driving the action (if one dare call it that) as the music in noir films does.

This tedious exercise grinds to a close, after a three-year gap in the story, with some bad poetry and a threesome celebrating shaving. Yes, shaving. Don't ask. By that point, any liking for the noir or the farce has been thoroughly crushed.