Kristin Johnston in The Black Widow Gun Club, Whizgiggling Productions. Photo supplied.

The Black Widow Gun Club (Stage 4, MacEwan Fine Arts Walterdale Theatre)

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

This stylish little confection devised by Trevor Schmidt for Whizgiggling Productions comes with all the film noir trimmings:  — sexy sinister music (Mason Snelgrove), atmospheric shafts of light, snarly dialogue that includes the term “low-life,” smoking “for emphasis or affection,” femmes fatales in black if not mourning), a murder.

And here’s a wrinkle: one dead husband plus not one but three widows. An invisible detective is conducting an investigation, and Hugh’s serial marital history is emerging.

Cheryl Jameson in The Black Widow Gun Club, Whizgiggling Productions. Photo supplied

Schmidt’s production reassembles the three-actor cast of comic actors — Michelle Todd, Kristin Johnston, Cheryl Jameson— who have made previous Whizgiggling Fringe appearances hits (Destination Wedding, Destination Vegas, Lady Porn). The performances in Schmidt’s production are sharp and stylish. The formidable first Mrs. Fairfax, a filthy rich red-lipsticked socialite whose copious supply of moolah was a evidently a big draw for the late Hugh, gets an incisive portrait from Johnston. She’s a veritable ice floe of grievances and resentment, with a ‘we are not amused’ glare that could congeal oil at 100 paces.

Michelle Todd in The Black Widow Gun Club, Whizgiggling Productions. Photo supplied.

The second Mrs. Fairfax (Todd) was a cocktail bar waitress on the make (“I was the only one he truly loved”) who refers to Hugh as “daddy” with the sugar implied. She was supplanted by the third Mrs. Fairfax (Jameson), a boho artiste specializing in cocaine-fuelled death-centric nudes, who admits breezily she was never in love with the guy. But hey, “I’ve done worse with worse.” Hugh gave each of his brides a pearl-handed lady-sized revolver as a wedding present. In retrospect, Hugh….

They each step from the darkness into a spotlight to tell their story. There isn’t much more I should tell you since it’s a thriller,  short, staccato, and cunningly put together by the playwright/director. But it’s entertaining, performed with flair, and fun to piece together.