Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Noir the joint

Fine production for a weak book at North Coast Rep's Gunmetal Blues: The Musical

Gunmetal Blues: The Musical at North Coast Rep - Image by Aaron Rumley
Gunmetal Blues: The Musical at North Coast Rep

Gunmetal Blues: The Musical

“The truth you wouldn’t see,” says crusty gumshoe Sam Gallahad, “‘till you finally saw too much.” An attractive woman “had a mouth that would have sent Shakespeare thumbing through a thesaurus.”

Hardboiled fiction’s always been cruisin’ for a bruisin’. Tough-talkers like Philip Marlowe and the Continental Op lead with their rhetorical chins. And some of the best parts of Scott Wentworth’s book for Gunmetal Blues: The Musical, happen when Sam, or one of several platinum blondes, or lounge lizard Buddy Toupee put satiric twists on gruff film noir gab.

Sponsored
Sponsored

As when Sam, in a beige trench coat, says don’t let his iconic look fool you. “I’m expecting rain.”

But the flimsily-plotted book and Craig Bohmler’s songs often step outside the genre and aim for four-alarm seriousness about love and loss and childhood’s end. The result is a quirky homage/spoof that entertains, but often undercuts itself from both sides: it cartoons the characters yet wants you to feel for them as well. The funny parts make the solemn parts feel longer.

“I traded in my fictions for the facts,” Sam boasts, though he can’t shake a fleeting, 10-year-old encounter. He lands a case: one of the town’s richest men took “the Big Shortcut” — committed suicide. Or did he? To find out, Sam bounces from blonde to blonde, all apparently femme fatales (but are they?). Somehow he lands documents that somehow explain everything, but by then any explanation’ll do.

Gunmetal Blues: The Musical at North Coast Rep

Done well, the material calls for acres of atmosphere and versatile performers to strut the strengths and hide — or just gloss over — weaknesses.

The North Coast Rep has atmosphere a bunch. Marty Burnett’s coal black set’s a basement piano-bar next to an airport (at regular intervals sound designer Chris Leussmann has a jumbo jet howl overhead). At first, the set looks drab, but appropriately so, since Burnett has crafted numerous angles and geometries that enable Matt Novotny’s excellent lighting to glance off them and noir the joint with dazzling back- top- and side-lit effects.

Kevin Bailey’s one of those “Where’s He Been?” performers who make you check his profile in the program at intermission. Bailey talks in a sandpaper, mean-street growl and sings expertly (and cuts loose with “Gunmetal Blues” at the top of Act two, including yakety sax vocal riffs). Bailey comes as close as possible to joining the two contrary Sams by suggesting that the serious one’s a bit of a sap.

Sharon Rietkerk, in Alina Bokovikova’s from homeless to penthouse outfits, plays the five blondes and sings to good effect, though she’s a step away from putting on a personal stamp and owning her numbers. As Buddy Toupee and others, Jeffrey Rockwell plunks the piano, sings, does a commercial for Buddy’s CD (“not available in stores”), and changes characters with the change of a hat. Three offstage musicians, led by Matt Best’s hot saxophone, provide capable backup.

The latest copy of the Reader

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

"Christmas Berry" is decorating our landscape, Longest meteor shower of the year

Full "cold moon," extremely high tides
Next Article

Live Five: Songwriter Sanctuary, B-Side Players, The Crawdaddys, Saint Luna, Brawley

Reunited, in the round, and onstage in Normal Heights, East Village, Little Italy, Encinitas
Gunmetal Blues: The Musical at North Coast Rep - Image by Aaron Rumley
Gunmetal Blues: The Musical at North Coast Rep

Gunmetal Blues: The Musical

“The truth you wouldn’t see,” says crusty gumshoe Sam Gallahad, “‘till you finally saw too much.” An attractive woman “had a mouth that would have sent Shakespeare thumbing through a thesaurus.”

Hardboiled fiction’s always been cruisin’ for a bruisin’. Tough-talkers like Philip Marlowe and the Continental Op lead with their rhetorical chins. And some of the best parts of Scott Wentworth’s book for Gunmetal Blues: The Musical, happen when Sam, or one of several platinum blondes, or lounge lizard Buddy Toupee put satiric twists on gruff film noir gab.

Sponsored
Sponsored

As when Sam, in a beige trench coat, says don’t let his iconic look fool you. “I’m expecting rain.”

But the flimsily-plotted book and Craig Bohmler’s songs often step outside the genre and aim for four-alarm seriousness about love and loss and childhood’s end. The result is a quirky homage/spoof that entertains, but often undercuts itself from both sides: it cartoons the characters yet wants you to feel for them as well. The funny parts make the solemn parts feel longer.

“I traded in my fictions for the facts,” Sam boasts, though he can’t shake a fleeting, 10-year-old encounter. He lands a case: one of the town’s richest men took “the Big Shortcut” — committed suicide. Or did he? To find out, Sam bounces from blonde to blonde, all apparently femme fatales (but are they?). Somehow he lands documents that somehow explain everything, but by then any explanation’ll do.

Gunmetal Blues: The Musical at North Coast Rep

Done well, the material calls for acres of atmosphere and versatile performers to strut the strengths and hide — or just gloss over — weaknesses.

The North Coast Rep has atmosphere a bunch. Marty Burnett’s coal black set’s a basement piano-bar next to an airport (at regular intervals sound designer Chris Leussmann has a jumbo jet howl overhead). At first, the set looks drab, but appropriately so, since Burnett has crafted numerous angles and geometries that enable Matt Novotny’s excellent lighting to glance off them and noir the joint with dazzling back- top- and side-lit effects.

Kevin Bailey’s one of those “Where’s He Been?” performers who make you check his profile in the program at intermission. Bailey talks in a sandpaper, mean-street growl and sings expertly (and cuts loose with “Gunmetal Blues” at the top of Act two, including yakety sax vocal riffs). Bailey comes as close as possible to joining the two contrary Sams by suggesting that the serious one’s a bit of a sap.

Sharon Rietkerk, in Alina Bokovikova’s from homeless to penthouse outfits, plays the five blondes and sings to good effect, though she’s a step away from putting on a personal stamp and owning her numbers. As Buddy Toupee and others, Jeffrey Rockwell plunks the piano, sings, does a commercial for Buddy’s CD (“not available in stores”), and changes characters with the change of a hat. Three offstage musicians, led by Matt Best’s hot saxophone, provide capable backup.

Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

How Much Time Do I Get With My BetterHelp Therapist?

Next Article

How to make a hit Christmas song

Feeling is key, but money helps too
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader