A NZ writ­ten dis­co noir set in Harlem, 1979. Dancer Fontel­la Pen­davis (Deb­o­rah Eve Rea) has been mur­dered at Stu­dio Soul and Detec­tive Gon­za­les (Jor­dan Rivers) has been sent to inves­ti­gate. There are plen­ty of pos­si­ble sus­pects – Luz Cruz (Brit­tany Goss), who has inher­it­ed Fontella’s job; Ari Sug­ar­man (Ed Blun­den), the own­er of the club; Raul Amoroso (Rod­ney Bane), Fontella’s bene­fac­tor, or De Cas­tro (Mar­garet Orte­ga), Raul’s house­keep­er. They are not the only peo­ple mourn­ing a loss — Detec­tive Gon­za­les’ moth­er Maria (Maria Jones) died recent­ly. Will he be able to solve the case?


Direc­tor Cas­san­dra Tse has infused this glit­tery dis­co noir with a sin­is­ter under­bel­ly. Rivers as Gon­za­les is appro­pri­ate­ly reserved as the griev­ing detec­tive with a secret.  Goss gives Cruz depth with a lay­er of flirti­ness over a real­is­tic cen­tre. Bane cap­tures Amoroso’s sense of loss, and dis­re­gard for the rules of soci­ety. The ensem­ble –  Rea, Blun­den, Jones and, Orte­ga – bring their indi­vid­ual named char­ac­ters as well as oth­er minor char­ac­ters to life with changes in voice and stance. Their mon­tage moments are some of my favourite parts of the show. All the cast use Amer­i­can style accents which they main­ly stick to although there are some shaky moments. Cos­tume design­er Lisa Kiy­omo­to-Fink uses excel­lent fab­ric choic­es to evoke the 1970s. Light­ing by design­er Aaron Black­ledge effec­tive­ly delin­eates the var­i­ous areas of the most­ly emp­ty stage as well as adding to the ten­sion. No chore­o­g­ra­ph­er is cred­it­ed so I assume the cast and direc­tor are respon­si­ble for the flash dis­co moves.

Nice direc­tion and full com­mit­ment from all the cast make this an enter­tain­ing watch through the murky nar­ra­tive to the final out­ra­geous end.