Article By: Alex Pearlman

Oozing charisma and just sheer adorableness, SGA President Brian LeFort makes his stage debut as Private Eye Rick Archer in the Performing Arts Office’s annual Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre, Café Noir.

Set on a Caribbean island in a small café, the play has a film noir theme, with all the actors wearing period(ish) costumes and attempting to solve a number of homicides with the help of audience input to move the story along, similar to Sheer Madness.

Although LeFort’s acting is certainly better than some of the others’ (he has to be less-than-perfect at something, c’mon), his singing leaves a little  to be desired. Luckily, junior Nat Steinsultz, in his duets with LeFort, picks up the slack and allows for entertaining musical numbers and death scenes.

Sophomores Sarah Cass and Mason Marino are stand-out talents as the café manager Madame Toureau and her lawyer, respectively, and both have obvious presence and move with ease as they wander through where audience members dine and chat during appetizers and dinner.

Freshman Betty Venieri, originally from Greece, uses her thick accent to her advantage as VooDoo Priestess Marie Larue, especially off-stage, as she wanders the audience reading tarot cards and palms, over eyelinered and red-lipped.

While Café Noir is not a spectacle of excellent writing or acting, it certainly is fun. The story is just as silly as all those classic who-done-it movies are, where everyone’s a suspect, and some of the actors are obvious novices, but the show itself is a riot. The cast has wonderful comedic timing, their faces lit by excellent lighting (considering the stage is the Donahue Café), and a creative black, white and grey set that feels like actually stepping into the Maltese Falcon.

Directed by Kathy Maloney and Assistant Directed by SGA Secretary Christina Panagiotakos, Café Noir is a great way to spend a night relaxing and laughing before the stress of finals starts to creep up.

Tickets are $10 at the Hub through Friday night and meal plans and RAM cards are also accepted as payment.