• • •
Stand-Off, Spin-Out, Repeat: Directing The Tarantino Variation
(Directed by Rey Parla – Culminating Performances @ The Barrow Group)
Director’s Statement:
Directing The Tarantino Variation during my one-year journey at The Barrow Group was a thrilling dive into absurdist territory—equal parts blood-soaked parody and existential vaudeville. This short play by Seth Kramer offered the perfect powder keg for exploring what happens when bravado breaks down and posturing meets absurdity at gunpoint. Three men. Three suits. Three egos locked in an eternal Mexican standoff—where no bullet ever flies, but the tension ricochets through every beat.
Working with Noah Gold (Mr. Mauve), J.T. Thorne (Mr. Fuchsia), and Kevin Qian (Mr. Puce) was a lesson in controlled chaos. Together, we embraced a style that flirted with Tarantino but spiraled into something Beckett might grin at—stylized, neurotic, hilarious. Each performance revealed new comic cadences, shifting alliances, and emotional contradictions under the surface of all that macho posturing.
I encouraged the actors to find their own "whistle"—their own warped music to play inside this dance of death. We explored Morricone, silence, and soundscapes of madness. We asked: Are these men threatening each other, or afraid to be alone? We found absurdity not in parody, but in pain disguised as parody.
This was more than homage—it was an exercise in tension, rhythm, and the vulnerability of performance. My sincere thanks to Seth Barrish and Lee Brock for their unwavering mentorship, and to TBG for creating a space where craft meets instinct and play meets purpose.
These three filmed versions—our “goes”—are different snapshots of the same fever dream. Each one, a slightly different detonation.
Enjoy the mess.
~ Rey Parla
• • •
GO ONE
“Controlled Tension”
Three men. Three suits. Three loaded threats.
In this first go, we dialed the tension to a slow boil.
Every look, every twitch, every laugh teetered on the edge of violence.
A study in stillness before the fall.
The audience laughed… nervously.
And the guns? They never blinked.
• • •
GO TWO
“Spiral of Laughter”
This version plays like a fever dream in a funhouse mirror.
Lines stretch. Rhythms swing. The absurdity blooms.
Mr. Mauve has to pee. Mr. Fuchsia gets poetic.
Mr. Puce contemplates snow angels in blood.
Somewhere between Beckett and Tarantino,
the audience finds themselves laughing at the cosmic joke.
And maybe… at themselves.
• • •
GO THREE
“Descent into Absurdity”
By now, the triangle is warped.
The aim is looser, the comedy sharper.
There’s music in the madness—every gesture exaggerated,
every line soaked in theatrical paranoia.
No one pulls the trigger, but everyone unravels.
We end not with a bang, but a craving.
(Burger King? McDonald’s? Wendy’s salad bar?)
This isn’t a shootout. It’s a mirror.
• • •
Three Men Walk Into a Triangle
A Short Play Directed by Rey Parlá at The Barrow Group
Director’s Note (for the gallery wall, not the gunfight)
Three men.
Three suits.
Three barrels trembling in the dark.
This was my year to play with pressure.
The Tarantino Variation is not so much a play as it is a clock without hands—ticking through dread, swagger, and comic futility. A parody? Maybe. A provocation? Definitely. I directed it like a cinematic jazz riff: one part Ennio Morricone, one part Harold Pinter, with a whole lot of absurdist laughter echoing through the barrels of fake guns.
We worked in rhythm—our triangle of actors spinning tension into silliness, bullets into punchlines, paranoia into choreography. Mr. Mauve had to pee. Mr. Fuchsia cracked under grammar. Mr. Puce made snow angels out of blood. The audience? They laughed. Hard. Because the whole damn thing was ridiculous… and real. A reflection. A funhouse mirror.
These filmed "goes" are time loops. Each one a different frequency, a different heartbeat of the same moment that never quite resolves.
There is no trigger pulled. No one dies.
Instead, we stand there—caught between impulse and hesitation.
And then we ask: Burger King or McDonald’s?
Directing this piece at The Barrow Group was a chance to test timing, tension, and tone. I offer it now as three variations on a farce, an homage, a question.
Pick your version. Watch them all.
This is theatre with the safety off.
— Rey Parlá