White shirts, black suits and shades. Walking in slow-motion. 1970s radio. Mr. Pink, Mr. White, Mr. Orange.
Quentin Tarantino’s debut film is a ’90s cult classic, and now it’s a play, adapted by local theater techie and actor Lewis Rhames. He says he’s located a deeper understanding of it, one that Tarantino, who said “violence is a purely aesthetic thing,” might appreciate.
“It took a long time to [figure out] what it’s about,” Rhames says. “It’s about the problems of white male rage in society. These guys have been handed a single task and they can’t stop competing with each other, insulting women and others.”
Therein lies a story about a team that fights itself, professionals whose ethics are weak, machismo masking fear, camaraderie covering for aggression, sociopathy, cowardice and guns. Lots of guns.
Rhames reassembled Tarantino’s chopped-up timeline into a linear chronology and kept the most recognizable half of the soundtrack, but otherwise the script is close to the original. That means a lot of f-words, n-words and b-words, as modifiers, as adjectives, as verbs.
Rhames says he contacted the film company about procuring the rights to do Reservoir Dogs, but got no response. Paper Wing co-owner Koly McBride says, “I’m just going to kind of do it,” and hope they’re small enough not to arouse attention. It’s a rogue approach.
Tarantino’s been called out for his own profuse “borrowing” or “homages” of other films. For Reservoir Dogs alone: Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing, John Huston’s Asphalt Jungle, 1974’s The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, and, most mirror-like, Ringo Lam’s City on Fire.
Let the homages begin.
RESERVOIR DOGS plays 8pm Friday and Saturday, through June 21, at Paper Wing Hoffman, 320 Hoffman Ave., Monterey. $25/general; $22/senior, military, student. 905-5684, www.PaperWing.com.