Killer Joe
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Photo Courtesy Garage Theatre
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By Ben Miles
Playwright Tracy Letts' mother--acclaimed author, Billie Letts--made this comment regarding her son's scripts: "Everybody in Tracy's stories gets naked or dead." (Tracy Letts was a 2004 Pulitzer Prize nominee for Bug.) Killer Joe--in production at Long Beach's Garage Theatre, through September 8--is no exception to Mrs. Letts' observation, though the term "everybody" is a slight exaggeration. in Killer Joe there are but several instances of nudity, and only a plurality of deaths. That's more than enough to warrant the show's "Mature Audiences Only" warning, however.
Written in 1991, Joe has a dramatic pedigree inherited from the classics of film noir. Despite that the characters on display in Letts' conceit are from a different social class and region of the country (Texas--trailer-trash is an apt description of these lowlifes), there's a particular inspiration from James M. Cain's 1935 novel and 1944 movie, Double Indemnity. Moreover, the venal motives and existential miseries under examination in Letts' play are surprisingly similar to those of Cain's unsavory line-up of characters.
Joe Cooper ( a formidable and frightening Frank Stasio) is a detective with the Dallas Police Department. But he has a lucrative part-time gig is as a hit-man. When young Chris Smith (Jeff Pearce, in a canny portrayal) finds himself in trouble because of his double-crossings of drug dealers, he convinces his ner'-do-well daddy, Ansel Smith (the credible Rory Cowan), that hiring the lethal lawman to whack his mother (Ansel's ex-wife) in order to allow them to cash in on her $50,000 life insurance policy, is a dirty deed that ought to be done. The policy supposedly has Jeff's little sister and Ansel's youngest child, Dottie (a remarkable Juliana McBride), as the beneficiary. Nevertheless, Jeff, Ansel and Ansel's current wife, Sharla (a daring performance by Kim Bush), are certain that Dottie will willingly divide the proceeds among them, after Killer Joe's amount is deducted.
Staged by Eric Hamme, the director makes creative use of The Garage's intimate space, while shining light onto the dark souls that inhabit Letts' pleasingly peculiar and wholly unpredictable dramatization.
Killer Joe plays Friday - Saturday at 8 p.m. The Garage Theatre is located at 251 E. 7th Street. For reservations, dial (562) 433 - 8337. For further details, visit www.thegarage.org.
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