‘Red Noses’ promises revolutionary experience

It may be set in 14th-century France, but “Red Noses,” the next production at Golden West College, is “very much about our own day and age,” according to its director.

“ ‘Red Noses’ is a play about revolution and the revolutionary spirit,” says director Tom Amen, who’s preparing the period comedy for a Nov. 3 opening. “Beneath its comic façade, it is a play about power, which so often attracts the worst of us and corrupts the best.”

The play, written by Peter Barnes, is set in a plague-ravaged France of 1348 and is described by Amen as “hysterically funny, yet tremendously powerful. ‘Red Noses’ is an outrageous, life-affirming celebration of the human spirit.”

According to Amen, Barnes has created a morbid carnival of sorts in which the age-old battle of the artist and the state is played out in the style of German playwright and director Bertolt Brecht.

“In the shared view of Barnes and Brecht, the artist, who should be a force for liberation, too often becomes an impotent lackey,” Amen comments. “Art becomes nothing more than a mindless diversion, an opiate dispensed to the masses to pacify and numb.”

Amen says that “Red Noses” is a play that “boldly challenges social and political regimes that willfully oppress their people. In the play, Peter Barnes couples allegory with dark, provocative humor to mask a relentless, blistering attack on contemporary societies that threaten or stifle freedom of thought, word or deed.”

However, the director is quick to point out that “Red Noses” is not a heavy-handed political drama, but “a joyful, uplifting comedy.” He declares that the playwright described his play as “a letter from a transfigured world, much like ours, where statues come to life and human beings turn to stone. It is a letter wishing you good thoughts, but chiefly good feelings.”

At Golden West, Amen has amassed a large cast for his production, including Eric Bugosh, Tony Torrico, Kirby Keel, Ted Wolsley, Alec Malczynski, Melvin Martinez, Robert Ferraras, Freddy Chavez, David Steen, Anthony Cress, Jonathon Dean, Kirsten Krause, Kim Brown, Jacqueline Williams, Jason Hoskins, Greg Davis, Bruce Alexander, Christian Navarro, Kevin Moon and Brendan Williamson.

“Red Noses” will be presented Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. through Nov. 19 in the college’s Mainstage Theater. Tickets are priced at $12 and $10, and may be ordered by calling the box office at (714) 895-8150.