Noir (New Jersey Repertory Company)

The house lights dim and the credits of a black and white film are projected on the screen, the underscoring as well as the title Noir are easy clues that we are back in a movie theater in 1950. Perhaps it was a time some of us can still remember, but that some only know from the Turner Classic Movies Channel.

At any rate, there was something special about sitting in the dark awaiting the mystery, mayhem and menace that was promised and was mostly delivered in the next eighty minutes or so. Interesting, the wonderfully noir-ish new play by Stan Werse is exactly eighty minutes long and it is a surprisingly amusing and clever valentine to the genre.

Credits complete, the play's three characters soon emerge out of the dark shadows (excellently applied by lighting designer Jill Nagle) that are cast upon the grey brick-walled back streets of New York City and the arched doorways and corridors of police headquarters. It doesn't take us long to see that these three characters have their own issues, agendas, and back stories and swiftly become entwined into a convoluted pulp-detective-story.

Noir is exceedingly well calculated to keep us in suspense as it never lets us forget how far corruption, cynicism, cigarettes (herbal for sure) and most of all sex can take us into the underbelly of a society that doesn't play by the rules, especially when it comes to blackmail and murder.

In this case, the play, splendidly directed by Marc Geller, follows the efforts of Clay Holden (Darrell Glasgow), a tough, brash, thirty-something detective (Darrell Glasgow) as he attempts to keep his professional ethics and equilibrium while coping with two inquiring, resentful and distrusting detectives, Norbert Grimes (Thomas Grube) and McQue (Michael McCoy). Grube is perfect as the sixty-something older detective whose years on the force have made him callous and mean even as he mentors the unshakable, misguided Clay. A big and brawny McCoy is excellent as the much maligned, but quietly brainy McQue, who serves as the plot's narrator.

They make excellent adversaries for Clay who unwittingly becomes vulnerable to the seductive charms of a mysterious, beautiful and rich widow cum nightclub chanteuse Helen Lydecker (a wonderfully enigmatic Catherine Lefrere) with a scheme or is it a scam? She's quite a curvaceous number who not only happens to have long dark wavy hair, very red lips and a sultry voice, but bears an uncanny resemblance to noir film star Marie Windsor. Lefrere gets to sing a nice torchy ballad written by Eric Werse (Stanley's cousin).

While it would be easy and possibly apt to quote some of the funny but never corny bon mots that punctuate Werse's tense and taut and very witty text, I would prefer to keep you in suspense until you have the pleasure of seeing it.

Noir was originally produced during the 2010 New York Fringe Festival. This more elaborate and more importantly slick and polished production should have a prosperous afterlife in regional theaters.

Noir
New Jersey Repertory Company, 179 Broadway, Long Brach, NJ
From 04/04/13 Opened 04/06/13 Ends 05/05/13