Theatre_of_the_Film_Noir
Theatre of the Film Noir is a stage play by Canadian playwright George F. Walker.[1] Inspired by film noir tropes, the play centres on Inspector Clair, a detective who is investigating the death of Jean, a young gay resistance fighter in the aftermath of the Liberation of Paris in 1944.[2]
Characters in the play include Bernard, Jean's lover; Liliane, Jean's sister; Eric, a German Nazi officer and Liliane's lover whom she is hiding in her home to protect him; and Hank, an American soldier whom Liliane enlists to kill Bernard before he can inform the detective about Eric.[2]
The play was originally promoted as an adaptation of an unpublished play by a French playwright named Henri Berger,[3] although this was a publicity stunt and neither Henri Berger nor the "original" play actually existed.[4] In fact, the play drew on some plot and character elements of Jean Genet's novel Funeral Rites, to the extent that the producers took the precaution of having copyright lawyers review the works before taking the production on a European tour, with the lawyers ultimately finding that the works were different enough to not raise infringement issues.[4]