With its snappy dialogue and film noir milieu—trench coats, crime scenes and stolen microfilm—Michael Hollinger’s “Red Herring” transforms all the usual clichés into comic fodder. It’s not a bad idea. It would be a stronger one if Hollinger had a better fix on things. A 1952-set murder mystery, the play centers on three couples whose lives become intertwined when a dead body turns up at the harbor. The stylish but somewhat pointless production at Northlight Theatre, directed by Jessica Thebus (who brought a similar sensibility last year to About Face Theatre’s Sapphic-noir comedy, “Pulp”) blips along with a plucky, entertaining rhythm, but the proceedings feel scattershot. Essentially, the play is an echo chamber of a genre comedy, where the laughs and gaffes ricochet around without ever hitting a target. That being said, the production features some very canny performances: Tracy Michelle Arnold as a police detective brings to mind a smoky-voiced Patricia O’Neal, circa “A Face in the Crowd,” and Lesley Bevan as the racy-innocent spawn of red-baiter Joseph McCarthy. (Nina Metz)
Dueling in Dystopia: A Review of "Last Hermanos" at A Red Orchid Theatre Two Mexican American brothers who've grown up separately in the United States are together on the run, hoping to make it across the border to Mexico and escape the unfriendly confines that our country has become in a not-too-distant dystopian future.
