In A Pig's Valise

by Eric Overmyer

In Eric Overmyer’s hilarious send-up of private-eye pulp fiction, Shrimp Bucket and his brother, Gut, are stealing the sexy Dolores Con Leche’s dreams. It’s Taxi’s task to find out why. From the ubiquitous fog to the cheap bedrooms at Heartbreak Hotel to Con Leche’s legs, which are described as “gams that could raise goose flesh on a tossed salad,” IN A PIG’S VALISE pokes fun at and pays homage to the hardboiled detective novels we all know and love.“IN A PIG’S VALISE is a musical comedy spoof of the hot-cool private-eye pulp fiction associated with Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. Except that it’s wilder, much wilder. VALISE, among other oddities, features a stubby villain named Shrimp Bucket, an ‘ethnic dancer’ heroine named Dolores Con Leche (or, as the gumshoe hero, James Taxi, calls her, Sadness With Milk) and, in a bit part homage to Hammett’s real-life lover, an undercover FBI agent named Lillian Hellman … Spiced with songs by August Darnell (Kid Creole) that bear such lines as ‘Kiss Me Deadly’ and ‘Never Judge a Thriller by Its Cover’ … [a] broad, winking satire of the language and plot conventions of the old books and movies … Shattered Globe Theatre, which is presenting the Midwest premiere of VALISE … has a lot of fun with this kind of material.” —Richard Christiansen, The Chicago Tribune

87 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1989