Bloodshot

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[avatar user=”Victor Gluck” size=”96″ align=”left”] Victor Gluck, Editor-in-Chief[/avatar]

Elinor T Vanderburg’s Bloodshot is a clever homage, satire and mashup of film noir represented by Raymond Chandler and James Cain, modern science fiction and a touch of Don DeLillo’s futurist stories. While director Nigel Semaj does fine work with the actors, five of the eight who were in the 2020 production at the Doxee at Target Margin Theater, visually the play is unimaginative and bland while the play calls out for an atmospheric and moody mise-en-scène. Neither Nora Marlow Smith’s white curtains for a set nor Marcella Barbeau’s alternately white, red, blue and purple lighting suggest the gritty story being depicted.

Using a Narrator who seems to be a doppelganger for the hero, coroner RJ Reaver, in a unnamed city, we are confronted with a bizarre case: people are exploding for no reason in locked rooms. Reaver also sees footprints on the walls of the crime scenes as well as people falling from the sky, but only he is able to see this nor do they appear in his photographs. His cool as a cucumber chief Detective Bella Marjorie worries about his state of mind. They cross paths with femme fatale radio talk show host Bailey Sunshine whose show Sunshine After Dark is everyone’s favorite show in The City. Among the people interviewed by the TCPD are billionaire Victor Pistachio and Ron Roland, the Mattress Baron. At some point, the Narrator and Reaver appear to become one person.

From the beginning the Narrator warns us that “this not a mystery in the traditional sense.” We are also told that “in our tale, the killer and the victim are one and the same and the mystery may never be resolved.” The play’s lack of closure may bother some theatergoers but is unsurprisingly typical of post-modern novelists. The blurring of the Narrator and protagonist may also throw some viewers but this may be intended to show that Reaver is in the throes of a nervous breakdown.

Vanderburg’s narration is colorful and striking like the authors she emulates: “He was high-wired – all sweat and thirst and useless hands that fondled each other like horny teenagers.” “He moves through the crowd like an upright stingray, silk rippling against his guests.” “His eyes are as wide and frightened as two moons, daunted and bewildered.”  “A hot dog’s not a sandwich, either, but it still hits the spot at a picnic.” The language not only rolls over the tongue but makes brilliantly poetic mental images.

While the lighting hardly ever suggests that of classic film noir which the play clearly suggests, the original music by onstage band, The Mombs (Drew Vanderburg, Evan Berg, Matt Oliva and Jason Smith), offers the moody atmosphere the physical production does not. The playwright’s own costuming is more effective than the set but a little bit on the understated side for this outrageous story though in keeping with 1940’s black and white film noir. Some of the silhouettes behind the white draperies are striking, others not so much.

The cast alternates between realistic characters and bizarre, over-the-top performances which seems to be intentional.  Ben Holbrook as the Narrator is consistently absorbing. As Reaver, the protagonist-hero, Fedly Daniel beautifully delineates a man losing his grip on reality. As his boss Detective Bella Marjorie, Nijah Dent is as aloof and unemotional as a Freudian psychiatrist. Jordan Antonette Mosley, new to the 2020 cast could not be more slinky and mysterious. Cashton Tate Rehklau as Ron Roland, the Mattress Baron, Ray Johnson as Dr. Corey and Soren Stockman as billionaire Victor Pistachio are both bizarre and over-the-top, at times pushing the play into caricature. As a character called “The Naked Man,” (though not depicted totally nude), who may be a figment of Reaver’s imagination, Kofi Asanti, also new to the original cast, is both sinister and foreboding.

Elinor T Vanderburg’s Bloodshot is a fascinating attempt to create a film noir play for the stage. The visuals do not live up to the script’s promise, but it remains entertaining and engrossing. The schizophrenic characterizations, half realistic and half outrageous, are distracting in their inconsistency; however, it does not take away from the final effect. While the production by SheNYC Arts, “a femme-led nonprofit organization fighting for gender equality in the arts and entertainment industry across the United States,” is deficient in several ways, the play augurs an impressive future career for talented playwright Elinor T Vanderburg.

Bloodshot (performed in repertory with Fort Huachuca through October 14, 2023)

SheNYC Arts

A.R.T./New York Mezzanine Theatre, 502 W. 53^rd Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, visit http://www.shenyarts.org/repshows/

Running time: two hours without an intermission