DARK NOON (SOUTH AFRICA/DENMARK)
A FIT+FOXY PRODUCTION
PRODUCED BY GLYNIS HENDERSON PRODUCTIONS, THE PLEASANCE, & ALCHEMATION
An Untold Story of the Wild (Wild) West
They say history is written by the victors. In Dark Noon, the story is told by the vanquished.
The break-out hit of 2023’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Dark Noon envisions U.S. history as equal parts ridiculous, horrifying, and deeply profound. On an open stage covered with the red dirt of the prairie, the skeleton of a pioneer town is erected in real time by an extraordinary cast of South African actors. Acclaimed Danish director Tue Biering and South African co-director and choreographer Nhlanhla Mahlangu retell the Hollywood story of a High Noon Western through an outsider’s lens: Native Americans, cowboys, missionaries, enslaved Africans, Chinese workers, European settlers, prostitutes, and Confederates. Ripe with marvelous stagecraft, slapstick humor, and a keen eye for hypocrisy, Dark Noon is a Wild Wild West circus where an innocent encounter can explode in an instant.
“Immersive, sensational, extreme... cleverly evokes the haunted vastness of the West in the mid-1800s. Everything Dark Noon chooses to explore figuratively was once quite literal to its victims.” The New York Times
“One of the most innovative, provocative, powerful pieces of theatre I have ever seen. This immersive, myth-busting masterpiece had an almighty impact on me which will continue to unfold for a very long time”. Phoebe Waller-Bridge
“Exhilarating and outrageously entertaining... the stagecraft is spectacular and the slapstick is delightfully silly.” Time Out New York
Touring considerations: designed to play 3/4 but depending on the architecture of a proscenium, it may be adapted.
First row of audiences members are asked to come onstage across the production, sometimes participating in challenging content. Please contact us for the production’s archival.
Length: 1 hour and 35 minutes, no intermission
