High Noon is my third visit to the Axis Company after Dead End and Evening – 1910. This off-off Broadway venue is a small yet visually expansive space in a basement in Greenwich Village. The set is all white – the floors, the wood walls, the saloon bar and a platform all the way to the left. The actors emerge wearing superb costumes (Karl Ruckdeschel) in various shades of black and dark gray. A famous Academy Award winning western film is reinterpreted for the stage. The tension created is riveting.
The story is about a retiring marshal who marries at the start of the play. The townsfolk all hear that a convicted man is out of jail and returning to the town presumably to extract revenge on the marshal. The train is scheduled to arrive at noon. The locale is still a territory in the United States but lawlessness has been brought under control. The economy is wobbly and citizens worry about the impact of a devastating event. Concerns also mount from those who have real reason to fear the train’s arrival, like an ex-girlfriend who later became the marshal’s ex. Rather than retire and leave town with his new bride, the marshal decides to stay and face the impending gun battle.
The actors are on stage for the entire performance which lasts a little more than an hour. There is continual movement in which the characters ebb and flow into their scenes. The dialogue is crisp and appropriately clipped and melodramatic for the western genre. Directed by the company’s Artistic Director Randy Sharp, the impact is stylized, true to the spirit of a western yet somehow a dreamscape. Imagine a town where its people are all armed and self-protection is the rule of law. The DNA of the Second Amendment.
Tension builds from the storyline but is theatrically enhanced by the background music and sound effects by Blondie’s Paul Carbonara. The actors evoke their characters varying degrees of nerves fraying amid the rising apprehension as noon approaches. What will happen? You will be grandly entertained and look forward to the next Axis production. This troupe has great style. I left the theater feeling rather tense. And impressed.
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