HIGH NOON
Conceived by Axis Company
Directed by Randy Sharp
February 15 - March 24, 2018Thursdays - Saturdays at 8PM
Adults $30; Seniors/Students $20; Artists/Under 30 $10; First Ten Tickets for each show are $10 | Veterans & Active U.S. Service Members and Their Families, FREE
Axis Company presents HIGH NOON, an adaptation devised by the ensemble. In this interpretation of HIGH NOON, the Wild West is not the place of heroes and adventure, but a landscape of overbearing nothingness where humans, and their moral conflicts, are cast in glaring light. As the town awaits the alleged return, and savage revenge streak, of a murderer on the noon train, their marshal desperately tries to rally support and save his own life.
Featuring: Featuring: Spencer Aste, Brian Barnhart, Andrew Dawson, George Demas, Britt Genelin, Phil Gillen, Jon McCormick, Nicholas McGovern, Brian Parks, Katie Rose Summerfield
Production Stage Manager: Erik Savage
Asst. Stage Manager: Laurie Kilmartin
Lighting Designer: David Zeffren
Asst. Lighting Designer: Amy Harper
Set Designer: Chad Yarborough
Costume Designer: Karl Ruckdeschel
Asst. Costume Designer: Jess Gersz
Properties Designer: Lynn Mancinelli
Composer/Sound Designer: Paul Carbonara
For more information and to reserve a Veteran ticket please email INFO@AxisCompany.org.
PLEASE NOTE: There are some brief LOUD noises and STROBES used in this production.
“… this onstage anxiety dream forces us to reexamine what really is the "right thing," and why an allegedly heroic marshal would find himself alone... 'High Noon' couldn't be timelier as we reexamine political authority and who has the legitimacy to wield it. While the original film presented a black and white tale of duty, Axis admirably paints in shades of gray.”
—Zachary Stewart
“The ensemble acting maintained a sense of truth amid such abstraction with line readings that put any number of moments in abrupt, sharp focus. The staging had a certain formality that suggested an element of ritual. After all, this story is cyclical, a constant churn of justice and the lack of it...I found (it) Brechtian, offering no release from the issues at hand. Any traditional ending would suggest that justice of some sort wins out... 'High Noon' became a dense, provocative, complicated nexus of ideas – the sort that’s possible off-off-Broadway.”
—David Patrick Stearns, Arts Journal
“A triumph of superior production design and physical staging…visually arresting…”
—TheaterScene
“Axis artistic director and founder Randy Sharp transforms a classic American Western into an existential purgatory…'Waiting for Godot' meets Clint Eastwood’s 'High Plains Drifter'…a kind of way station where there are no genuine heroes and everyone has to face their sins, both individually and as a community…(the) finale…(provides) a surprising, subtle twist…in this uncompromising morality tale about mid-twentieth-century America — and today.”
—THIS WEEK IN NEW YORK
“You can drop kick any cinematic nostalgia of Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, and assorted bad guys back to 1952. Axis Theatre’s adaptation of Hollywood’s quintessential Old West showdown has been given a new, lushly surreal life with a company that paints the material and their characters with strokes of conflict—both internal and verbal.”
—City Guide New York
“There are more shadings here than there are in the original film and I think that really is something that is to be admired – the attempt to show that 'High Noon', though it’s a very well regarded movie… maybe it’s a little too pat and this one isn’t pat and it’s very eery… (with) very good performances… (it’s) surrealistic, impressionistic…”
—Peter Filichia, Broadway Radio
WATCH the HIGH NOON Trailer
