One plays in the West End at the prestigious Harold Pinter Theatre and stars Billy Crudup and Denise Gough. The other plays at The Other Palace, an intimate off-West End venue, and stars Jack Holden and … well, Jack Holden.
High Noon is the prestige offering, and it’s dead on arrival. Like the West End production of Dr. Strangelove several years ago, it takes existing intellectual property and leaves one wondering: who thought this was a good idea? Each film is already perfect on its own; neither needed to be reinterpreted for the stage. (A further question, to which I have no answer, is why I thought I should buy tickets for either of these.)
To be fair, High Noon, like Dr. Strangelove, remains relevant. Writing during the McCarthy era, screenwriter Carl Foreman shaped the film as a commentary on Hollywood at a moment when studio executives readily abandoned artists who ran afoul of HUAC. Foreman himself was blacklisted, moved to London, and had his passport confiscated.
The problem is not that High Noon has nothing to say to us today, but that this production doesn’t seem to know what that is. Like the movie, it unfolds roughly in real time, as Marshall Will Kane waits for his would-be killer to arrive on the noon train. But the play generates no theatrical tension. Billy Crudup—a wonderful actor but an odd choice for the Gary Cooper role—feels more like Cory Ellison on The Morning Show than like the taciturn hero of this story. The supremely talented Denise Gough, in the Grace Kelly role, occasionally sings a line or two of Bruce Springsteen, to no apparent effect.
I can think of a few possible reasons for the choice: Springsteen as American mythmaker or as working-class moralist. But if the director had a clear intention, it never registers theatrically. (And is “I’m on Fire” really the best choice for this Quaker lady?)
Stories of frontier justice depend on tension: the moral, social, physical pressure must continue to build, and here it simply doesn’t. Kenrex, by contrast, puts us on the edge of our seats throughout. Unlike High Noon, it is wildly entertaining.
Jack Holden grabs us from the beginning. He begins upstage right, hunched in a small space, presenting two characters: a frantic wife calling for help after her husband’s been shot, and the 911 operator trying to elicit the necessary information.
Holden is not completely alone on stage. A musician, John Patrick Elliott, provides live accompaniment—guitar, banjo, keyboard, drums, and voice—underscoring Holden’s near-miraculous grasp of some dozen (twenty? thirty?) characters in the small Missouri town living under the shadow of the sociopathic Ken Rex McElroy.
Based on a true story, it feels a bit like the best possible true-crime podcast brought to terrifying life. McElroy brutalizes the citizens of this tiny town—through assault, arson, attempted murder (he also impregnates a 14-year-old girl, then marries her to evade statutory rape charges)—yet he is never convicted of a crime. That’s thanks to his slippery Saul Goodman-like lawyer, as well as a few well-timed actions of his own, like putting rattlesnakes in jurors’ mailboxes.
Until the final showdown, that is. Fed up with the inability of the justice system to protect them, a group of citizens finally gathers to take the law into their own hands. How does a single actor present this showdown? It’s Ken Rex against a circle of microphones, as Holden skips from one to another—from Ken Rex to another of his antagonists—until lights, smoke, darkness, and gunshots leave him dead, with no one man identifiable as his killer.
The prosecuting attorney is left as helpless to identify the killer as he was to put Ken Rex himself behind bars. He questions the morality of this ending, his inability to bring justice to bear on the murder. I appreciated his perspective but didn’t share his dismay. An unseen chorus of townspeople sing Shenandoah, an anthem of solidarity, of community, perhaps simply a return to ordinary life. The ending may be morally ambiguous, but I found it deeply satisfying.
I’ve contrasted these two shows largely in terms of theatrical effectiveness, but the difference is also moral and social. Where High Noon relies on the righteousness and courage of one individual, Kenrex gives us a community that comes together when institutions fail them.
It’s easy to see why the makers of this production of High Noon thought its story of standing up to evil remains relevant. Kenrex, however, feels more urgent, leaving us with the weight of collective responsibility.
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