Kill Me Like You Mean It
About the show
Film noir for the stage, a world of rapid-fire dialogue, smoking guns, and femmes fatale.
... Read moreBen Farrell, Private Investigator, discovers that his cases are appearing on the pages of a popular pulp serial… but the crimes are being penned before they happen in real life. The mystery grows darker still when Farrell reads his own death in the prophetic pages.
"Stolen Chair Theater company proclaims that they “refuse to draw the line between high art and great entertainment,” and their latest show is a rare theatrical gem that is both of these things. A masterfully crafted bit of comedy, Kiran Rikhye has outdone herself with this brilliantly funny script...A five person farce as funny and well crafted as this could be the next Boeing Boeing." Full Review
"If Ionesco and Martin McDonagh watched The Maltese Falcon, they may very well have come up with something akin to Kill Me Like You Mean It; but it wouldn’t be nearly as good as the current comedic masterwork...The show is comic, genre-savvy genius; an impressive undertaking of the highest caliber. If the run isn’t extended, it would be the biggest off-Broadway mystery in decades." Full Review
"The audience laughs, but it’s never quite clear what they’re laughing at. Perhaps it’s simply the setup and delivery. Or maybe it’s something else, spurred by a deeper, more somber recognition of a shared futility. The show ends with an onstage cliffhanger. But the true cliffhanger comes from the existential questions left unanswered after the stage lights fade to black. Or rather, to grey." Full Review
"Kill Me Like You Mean It is a fascinating glimpse into the sort of murder mystery Albert Camus might write. It's both a thrilling story and an intellectual exercise, dressed in the classic trappings of film noir." Full Review
"A hokey funny spoof of film noir, the mood set by 1940s music, this play by the inventive Stolen Chair company mines every verbal and physical cliché in the book. And the ensemble do a superb job in bringing to life the characters, one of which is soon to be dead." Full Review
"There’s plenty of playful pulp throughout Kill Me Like You Mean It,which features appropriately dark, moody lighting and a jazzy score. There are an additional two sets of seats on either side of the stage, like a jury deliberating on the action unfolding in front of them in a courtroom drama while also providing different angles that evoke noir compositions. " Full Review
"Stylish but silly, Kill Me Like You Mean It (as one can infer from the title) seems as much an homage to film noir spoofs as it is to film noir itself. As with any of these detective stories, the plot is convoluted and takes some effort to follow. If they don’t take the mystery seriously, why should we? Full Review
"A high concept pastiche of film noir genre stereotypes that is hilarious when the stars align but could do with some tightening and cuts...When the shenanigans on stage work, they work fabulously. Alas, not everything always works in this production." Full Review
"While none of the performances is vaguely as charismatic or vocally potent as those of the great film noir stars (think Bogart, Mitchum, Bacall, and Stanwyck), the actors are moderately reasonable facsimiles. Unfortunately, their characters are little more than cardboard attitudes, and “Kill Me Like You Mean It” is little more than an ambitious exercise in style." Full Review
Cast & Creatives
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