Review of Silent Theatre Company's The Dueling Gentlemen

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called The Dueling Gentlemen. It was written and directed by Marvin Quijada. It was about these two men, The Drunk (Marcus Fittanto) & The Perfectionist (Quijada). I think it is so crazy that one man played so many different roles putting this show together, but he did an amazing job! The Drunk has been cast in this show with his friend The Perfectionist. It is called The Ugly Blonde and it is a play about these two men who are in love with the same ugly blonde person, but the thing is it is only done with two people, so they play all the parts. The ugly blonde is both of them, but they switch off. They do the show many many times, but then each one is different, and I also thought it was cool that every other scene takes place backstage in the dressing room. And what happens is that their friendship starts to go haywire because one of them is a perfectionist and the other one just doesn't like the help. I think that it is a pretty sad story because everything doesn't turn out the way that you want it to, but it was really funny at a lot of points. I really like that kind of combination, like a dark comedy, but I also like comedies where everything turns out. I thought this was a great show and I really really loved it.

I thought the way they did the show was very cool. The did it very differently from just a normal show; it was silent. There was piano accompaniment (played by Elliot Taggart, written by Ian Custer) and it made it even more like an actual silent movie. Music in a silent movie shows what the characters' moods are, and this did the same thing which I thought was really awesome. The title cards also helped you to understand the story better because they told you what they were saying. You didn't need the title cards all the time because the thing was that their expressions would tell most of the story. Like when The Perfectionist discovers something The Drunk has been hiding, you can see in his face that he is terrified. The wig helps them tell the story too because then it shows in the vaudeville show who is playing The Ugly Blonde. And I thought the way they could use the wig so that it could just be a hand inside of a blonde wig being the character was was super cool. I would have even loved just to see that show even without the drama "backstage!"

I thought a lot of the jokes were actually very very funny, even though they didn't use words all the time. One of my favorite funny parts when The Perfectionist was playing The Ugly Blonde and he would just over-exaggerate how scared she was of the gun battle. He was silent, which made it even more funny because he is silently screaming, and would do that for just a few seconds and then he would hop up and play another part. How funny he looked in the wig made it even funnier. Another funny thing was when The Drunk would walk in so sexily as The Ugly Blonde, but in one of the scenes he made it even more sexy than it usually was and it was just so hilarious. And it was even funnier because he had this big mustache which made it so so funny.

I thought it was kind of scary but it also really helped with the story how they got angrier and angrier each time they did the show. It was a funny show to start and then the first time they are angry they just kind of pout on stage and it is still funny but in a different way. Sometimes repetition can annoy me, but in this show it didn't because there were visible changes not just the same thing over and over. It is so different each time and it actually has to do with the plot. The way they change The Ugly Blonde shows you that their friendship is sort of decaying. I felt like this was a friendship show, but it wasn't a true-friendship-my-little-pony show. It is more like how friendships can end just by finding out some secrets and which is an actual truth about friendship. It is a sad truth, but it is actually true.

People who would like this show are people who like silent films, dark comedy, and sexy girls with mustaches. I think people should definitely go see this show. I really loved it and I thought it was a great idea for a theater company, the Silent Theatre Company, and I wish I had seen their shows sooner.

Photos: Krzys Piotrowski