Tickets are still available for this Friday and Saturday nights' performances of Nikolai Gogol's The Nose, presented by the International Theatre Ensemble at the Phoenix Theatre.

SFist attended the International Theatre Ensemble's production of Gogol's The Nose on Saturday night and found the play to be clever, refreshing and funny, just like the Nikolai Gogol short story from which it's adapted.

The multi-media production is a one-man show, adapted, directed, and performed by Oleg Liptsin, with the iPhone serving as a central tool, both figuratively and literally. Photographs and videos set in Saint Petersburg, Russia, create a dynamic backdrop, and surreal projected images and quick and clever costume changes facilitate dialogue between characters. YouTube videos featuring American and Russian popular culture icons, such as Steve Jobs and Peter Nalitch, illustrate just how relevant Gogol's observations still are today. Modern humans are often hopelessly unaware of what's right in front of our noses, or even our noses themselves.

On a personal note, we really liked the audience at Saturday night's show. There was a very happy and diverse mix of people, and we especially liked the clean-cut, blogger-type guys sitting next to us, who laughed at all the same stuff we did, including this Peter Nalitch video, which played in its entirety during a costume change. (We have watched this video like 20 times by now and have forced ourselves to not watch it today.)

Note to attendees this coming weekend, the play was actually on the 4th floor of the building, and not the 6th floor, like the sign by the front door says.

International Theatre Ensemble's The Nose | Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason St, SF | Friday and Saturday, March 13 and 14, 8 p.m. | $20