Blackened out at the Noir Theatre season

Nilma Dole

I suffered a humorous ordeal at the Punchi Theatre last weekend and I am not embarrassed about it.

After the ‘Puss pissuwa’ which was a long time ago, the Noir Theatre season that opened on the 18th of this month was a welcomed with arms wide open.

It was a drama decorated with the power of signs, how people are influenced by them, the consequences if they don’t read them and excuses for not following them.

Marsh Dodanwela’s performance has by far has exceeded expectations. Knowing how he can act as well as he can sing onstage with the now defunct Hollow Point Halo (somewhat), the slipping into various roles like American ‘gangsta’, pestering kid to hen-pecked hubby within two hours was really extraordinary.

Some of our friends from foreign lands who graced the Noir occasion were pleasantly surprised with Mr. Dodan’s acting skills and asked whether he was really Sri Lankan or well and truly, an unruly American? Of course he is, and Shel Silverstein’s script purposefully requires that adhering to standards is inevitable.

A designer friend of mine who watched it before gave me the best recommendation when I caught it on Sunday “You would have to kick yourself if you missed it today”.

I have no argument because with Marsh’s charisma on stage together with the effectual Rajinda Jayasinghe was instrumental in shaping the success of Noir into a great roll of dramatic pun. A notable mention should be the time it took for the actors to change their costumes to the set-up changes were done pronto so it was a good show.

The first one, ‘Wash and Dry’ presented to us by Sajith Amendra starring Ashini Fernando is actually a fine-printing script which is in fact ‘Watch & Dry’. Laundry cleaner George actually ‘watches and dries’ your clothes because that’s what the sign says at his Laundromat.

He closely inspects a gullible client’s clothes and goes to elaborate about the scandalous aspects of her life. It is satirical in its own way but irrevalant dialogue like ‘If I get raped, I will prosecute the rapist’ was certainly un-called for.

However, the convincing roles played by both certainly did the trick in making it a real wash of a story. ‘Abandon All Hope’ with Al & Benny (Marsh and Rajinda) is a killer satire with the two contemplating on a sign reading ‘Abandon All Hope all ye who enter here’.

The conversation is funny especially the line ‘Koreans doing you in the’ place-we-shouldn’t-talk-about where. Can’t say anymore due to censorship rules so please apologise.

‘No Dogs Allowed’ is a funny story about Mrs. Q relaxing at a hotel when its manager Mr. Wills confronts her with his reason to believe that Mr. Q is in fact a dog. And the sign at the hotel clearly says ‘No Dogs Allowed’ so we see Mrs. Q coming up with various excuses to keep her pet in place. Very interesting acting skills portrayed by Marsh as the lady and the serious irk of Rajinda is a subtle blend of wit and humour.’

The Best Daddy’ was one that was ‘bizarre’ in terms of its script - really don’t know how Silverstein brainstormed this with ‘Birthday Fool’ turning it into ‘Double Birthday Fool’ which is really ridiculous but what overcomes this is the funny role of Lisa by Marsh. The Daddy-like performance by Rajinda was interesting but the really child-like behaviour displayed by Mr. Dodan was convincing.

By far one of the best dramatic events of the year, can’t wait for next weekend!