In his seminal essay analysing the craft of hardboiled crime writing, The Simple Art of Murder, American novelist Raymond Chandler famously described the genre’s private eyes, such as his enduring character Philip Marlowe, with the following, famous quote:
‘Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor. He talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness.’
It would be fascinating to know what Chandler might make of private eye Butt Kapinski – a loving satire of hardboiled conventions and the tropes of film noir – who fills many of these criteria.
Created and performed by US comedian Deanna Fleysher, Kapinski is a lisping, bug-eyed, rude-witted grotesque – Humphrey Bogart meets Marty Feldman – who emerges from shadows at the start of the show in an archetypal noir pose: clutching a cigarette, trench coat collar turned up, lurking beneath a streetlamp. Except here the streetlamp emerges from beneath Kapinski’s trench coat, supported by an elaborate harness worn by the performer, ensuring that appropriate lighting follows the character anywhere and everywhere ‘he’ goes.
And Kapinski goes everywhere – abandoning the stage and roaming throughout the audience, enlisting almost everyone in the room into the wild story of murder and detection which unfolds.
At first Kapinski’s requests are simple – audience members are asked to vocalise the sound of the rain which appropriately pelts our fictionalised mean streets. Then someone is handed a microphone and roped into making mood music, and a nearby couple become the posed victims of a ghastly murder, complete with mimed sprays of blood. Things get wilder – audience members become cops, sex workers, city buildings, a priest – and the laughs fly thick and fast: until an ill-judged interaction with an audience member kills the mood and brings things grinding temporarily to a halt.
An experienced performer, director and improviser, Fleysher as Kapinski is adept at generating humour and delight – which makes her decision to try and enlist a clearly uncomfortable audience member on the night this reviewer attended unfortunate, even problematic. Rather than recognise his unwillingness to participate and move on, Fleysher stopped the show and tried to browbeat him into his role. His unwillingness to engage was palpable, and his awkward interactions with Kapiniski, when pushed, fell utterly flat. Consequently the hard-crafted mood dissipated, and the final 15 minutes of the show were a struggle, despite Fleysher’s valiant efforts to the contrary.
Overall, Butt Kapinski is an hilarious, hardboiled crime caper – witty, lively and unusual – but also a reminder than even experienced performers can sometimes misread a room.
4 stars out of 5
Butt Kapinski
Created and performed by Deanna Fleysher
Tuxedo Cat, Melbourne
Until 17 April
Melbourne International Comedy Festival
www.comedyfestival.com.au
23 March – 17 April
