Turn back your clock to the 1940’s heyday of film noir when movies like “The Maltese Falcon,” “Gaslight,” ”Murder My Sweet,” ”Rebecca,” and “This Gun for Hire” ruled the big screen. Kisses and killings, crimes and corruption, mystery and morals, heroes and hoodlums, dames and drama, gangsters and gothic, private detectives and protagonists, adultery and accusations, femme fatales and fate, and conspiracy and corruption were the signposts of the movie world.
Now Pantochino Productions is paying homage to that golden cinematic era with their original rendering of “What Now, Voyager” weekends until October 26 at The Mac, Milford Arts Council, 40 Railroad Avenue, Milford. Film noir may have been strictly black and white but Pantochino Productions’s version is all Technicolor, with glamorous costuming by Jimmy Johansmeyer, a wild comedy and lyrics on the high seas by Bert Bernardi and a spoofy musical score by Justin Rugg that swirls with romance, suspense, secrets and mystery. Please note that this melodramatic musical is for adult eyes and ears only…not for kiddies this time around.
Mary Mannix’s Charlotte Fale has a mother from h-e-double l hockey sticks created with meanness and sarcasm masterfully by Jimmy Johansmeyer. Poor Charlotte is browbeaten and drained of any semblance of positive self esteem by her mother’s verbal abuse. Luckily Charlotte is rescued by a good doctor portrayed by Justin Rugg and then romanced on a cruise by Griffin Kulp’s Jonathan Devaux-Duvet. Guns and cigarettes abound as Chad Celini, Valerie Loomis, and Shelley Marsh Poggio play an assorted sister-in-law, wife, nurse and maid. Bert Bernardi has fun directing this tribute to a long ago cinematic genre.
Musical highlights include “Poor Charlotte,” “Get the Crazy Out of You,” “It’s My Turn” and “Could This Be Love.” For tickets ($35), go to www.pantochino.com. Performances, with tables perfect to bring food and drink, are Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m.. with a special Saturday 2 p.m. show on October 18.
Watch how the neglected and rejected Charlotte Fale (even her name seals her sad fate) survives her mother’s label of her as a misfit and turns her tragedy into triumph. Come cheer her on!
