In Red Noir, writer Anne Waldman combines metaphors of the film noir genre and reflections on modern life in our economically and ecologically trouble ridden war culture. Set on the Lower East Side, with an array of vivid characters whose lives intertwine, the play follows a female detective as she investigates a black market deal done by many greedy hands and pursues two men, each carrying a valise - one filled with a nuclear or toxic substance; the other filled with the seeds of the future.

Integrating Ms. Malina's direction and Ms. Waldman's vast and accomplished literary catalogue, Red Noir exposes lists of toxic chemicals, reaches out to the Middle East, and expounds upon troubles in our worldly existence in an attempt to find ways toward revelation, revolution and redemption.