Dark Noon, the South African-devised history of the American West now visiting Brooklyn from the Edinburgh Festival, foregrounds violence by white Europeans against blacks, Asians, and native Americans to debunk the mythology of America established by heroes in film westerns. The title deliberately references High Noon (1952), but the piece belongs to the “in yer face” school of theater, established in Britain in the 1990s. Although “slapstick humor” is billed as one element of the production, the send-up is a heavy-handed attack on the depredations of Manifest Destiny.
