THE TANGLED SNARL
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Why, why, why, why, why would anyone try to do yet another parody of detective movies? Everyone from Neil Simon to the Firesign Theater to the Bowery Boys to Roger Rabbit, not to mention hordes of improvisational comedy troupes, has tackled this genre, and if there is anything new to say about Sam Spade and company, you won’t find it in The Tangled Snarl, the very talky, not very funny, nearly actionless parody of 1940s detective movies currently being performed at the Raven Theatre. Authors John Rustan and Frank Semerano clearly know their way around all the old comedy tricks–they are especially adept at wordplay and repeating gags–but they are content to follow a path worn by countless others who have wandered this way before them.
And come she does, in the classic form of Leslie Detweiler, a leggy, knockout brunette. Legs Flamingo, it turns out, was her husband, and she knows Flamingo gave Spuds a mysterious package to give to his wife a short time before he was killed. She’s come for that package.
Even for a parody, The Tangled Snarl is pretty trivial stuff. In the end, all this long one-act proves is how tapped out the premise is.
