Nothing's Funnier Than the Plague in Red Noses

Turns out, Red Noses spends another hour plus driving home every point it made in the first act with far less subtlety. While it seems like it's the summer of near-three hour comedies here in D.C., the problem with Red Noses is less about length and more about redundancy. The play had already addressed the church's wariness of the Red Noses troupe's unorthodox approach to fellowship, and dealt with the fine line of how to find humor in tragedy. The work takes some surprising and saddening plot turns in the second act, but this is a work that isn't particularly plot-driven, so we're left looking for something more substantative.

Still, the work certainly has some interesting and amusing moments. The motley crew of performers traipse their way through undertakings of "Everyman" and the Nativity; just try not to laugh when the stuttering comedian (Evan Crump) attempts to make his way through a simple introduction. Watching the intersection of the various sensibilities reacting to the plague - the black ravens spreading the disease, the flagellants embracing pain a little too wholeheartedly, and the whores profiting gamely from those drowning their misery in sex - can be fascinating, even if the ravens' shrill cries of "Caw!" get wearily jarring by the end.

The vaudevillian, occasionally didactic and "badump-ching!"-style, one-liner infused script makes it challenging to keep a steady tone - directors Jay Hardee and John Geoffrion have the responsibility of making sure the actors find the right balance between the mugging the work necessitates and being cartoonish without impact. Some actors do this handily - Christopher Henley as a Darth Vader-like Pope, John C. Bailey as the clown leader of the pack, Frank Britton as a reformed brute, and in particular Heather Haney as the lusty nun Marguerite - her regretful monologues hold the most dramatic weight of any moment in the show. Others are less successful - John Geoffrion chews scenery as the villainous Rochfort; Emily Webbe seems to have one exaggerated facial expression as the buttoned up Mother Toulon.

The directors have infused the work with a modern sensibility - the afflicted are pushed around in shopping carts, the costuming is more contemporary than medieval. In the program notes, they liken the Black Death to SARS and Avian Flu, among other current worries. But knowing how high the stakes were so many years ago, it can be difficult to make the comparative leap required to invest Red Noses with intense urgency.

Red Noses runs through July 20 at Washington Shakespeare Company. Tickets are available online.