IN A PIGS VALISE

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 F B I 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. Richard Christiansen, The Chicago Tribune_,