What would the ever-present mystery woman in 1940s film noir stories be like if we knew where she came from and where she's hoping to go?
That's the most interesting question posed by "Fire in the New World," a world premiere drama from Full Circle Theater. "Femme fatale" may not even be the correct term for Yumiko Alexander, who's intelligently portrayed by Anna Hashizume. Like many wives in noir tales, she's stuck in a marriage to a bully she doesn't love but, unlike her homicidal sisters, she doesn't seem willing to bump him off to get out of it.
Yumiko's husband, Roderic (Joe Allen) is a Vancouver tycoon who wants to bulldoze Japantown to make way for condos or whatever tycoons in 1963 built to make themselves feel powerful. He has reported her missing, along with $10,000 from his safe, and both the cops and gumshoe Sam Shikaze (Gregory Yang) are trying to find her. When they do, Rick Shiomi's play cares more than "The Big Heat" or "The Maltese Falcon" about helping us understand how this "femme" got stuck in a loveless marriage and what she plans to do if she can get free of it.
"Fire" has a mystery but it's not really a mystery play. Shiomi, who also directed, is more interested in the alienation of some of its characters — Sam and his best friend Rosie (amusing Alice McGlave) were interned in WWII prison camps less than two decades earlier — and in how the character stumble toward answers that will help them feel like they belong in a city that seems not to want them. Yes, the detective solves the mystery but, more importantly, this third Sam Shikaze play lets him find answers to questions that have kept him in a holding pattern for many years.
It's probably a good thing the whodunit aspect isn't central to "Fire" because Yang does not have the world-weary cynicism required of a noir detective; he seems too nice to make the existential choices Sam made in previous plays "Yellow Fever" and "Rosie's Cafe" (the plays are self-contained, so you needn't have seen the others). But "Fire" compensates with abundant humor, which mostly comes from affectionate awareness that noir tropes are goofy fun as long as you're not one of the people getting murdered or swindled.
Joe Stanley's fluid, clever set also has fun with the conventions of noir, placing three locations — a garbage-strewn alley, Sam's shabby office and Rosie's diner counter — next to each other on stage. Sam moves through the spaces, popping up unexpectedly in a way that suggests how film editing transports us from one place to another in the blink of an eye.
"Fire" doesn't transport us to the film noir era. It doesn't want to. At its best, the play takes a look back at a classic genre and asks what elements of it remain compelling today.
'Fire in the New World'
Who: Written and directed by Rick Shiomi.
When: 7:30 p.m. Wed.-Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Ends Nov. 6.
Where: Full Circle Theater at Park Square Theatre, 20 W. 7th Place, St. Paul.
Protocol: Masks required only at Thurs. and Sun. performances.
Tickets: $16-$55, 651-291-7005 or parksquaretheatre.org.
