Ladies & Gents Noir Thriller

According to the AP, director and playwright Paul Walker's prize-winning play, Ladies & Gents, is a noir thriller performed entirely in the covered men's and women's bathrooms in Central Park's Bethesda Terrace.

The action takes place near the sinks and urinals; the audience stands, clustered in front of the row of stalls. Each of the two pieces that comprise the play runs simultaneously in both bathrooms, and it doesn't matter the order in which they are seen; the audience splits in half and switches facilities at intermission.

Set entirely in a bathroom, the show portrays the seedy underside of 1950s Dublin, when double-talking politicians professed piety but entertained prostitutes on the side.

"So, pretty much like the state of New York right now," Walker said in an interview this week, referring to former Gov. Eliot Spitzer's prostitution scandal. "These themes are always relevant."

Walker and Karl Shiels, the artistic director of the experimental Dublin theater troop Semper Fi, decided an actual bathroom was the best place _ no, the only place _ to stage the play.

See also: Canadian Press' AP review.