REVIEW: Lizzie Borden, Great Chops
PlayhouseSquare 14th Street Theatre 3/30/12
Reviewed by Laura Kennelly
New England turned bloody one hot summer in August 1892 when someone viciously hacked Mr. Borden and his second wife to death. Many suspected his daughter Lizzie did it, but they couldn’t pin it on her so she went free — if you can call “free” being remembered forever in a jump-rope rhyme as the gal who took an axe and “gave her mother forty whacks and when she saw what she had done, gave her father forty-one.”
Flash forward over a hundred years: today Lizzie Borden is a rock musical and the latest collaboration between PlayhouseSquare and the Baldwin-Wallace College music theatre program. The tragic tale created the basis for a smashing and witty celebration at the 14th Street Theatre Friday night thanks to faux slaughter and plenty of talent as dished out by a stunning quartet of dangerous young women and a bouncy rock band.
This resurrection of the Fall River, Massachusetts murder case was written by Steven Cheslik-Meyer, Tim Maner, and Alan Stevens Hewitt and directed by Victoria Bussert. The score spins between hard rock, ballad and church music and underscores the dissonance between our ideas about nineteenth-century decorum and our twenty-first century delight in things brassy, brash and sassy.
Leading the pack was Shannon O’Boyle as Lizzie, a woman who spoke and sang on the airy edge of homicidal madness, moving from depressed victim of sexual abuse to mistress of frenzied, delusional madness and back again. Sophie Brown (Bridget Sullivan the Irish maid) was amusingly tough as the earthy and wry maid who didn’t give a rap for her employers. Rachel Michelle Jones channeled Grace Kelly as the beautiful Alice, the Borden’s neighbor who may have a very very close personal relationship with Lizzie. Striking Ciara Renee as Emma Borden, the oldest Borden daughter, manages to be so savage and fierce that it’s hard to believe no one accused her (of course, she said she was out of town when the murders took place). The show, which had only four performances Fri 3/30 to Sun4/1, was double-cast with Keri Rene Fuller (Lizzie), Andrea Leach (Emma), Elizabeth Wehrli (Alice), and Genna Paige Kanago (Bridget) starring in alternate performances.
Although “Forty Whacks,” a thumping raucous tune belted out by Lizzie, Emma, Alice, and Bridget, is likely to be the main hummable tune after the show, there’s also a snip of beauty here and there, such as in the soulful “Watchmen for the Morning” sung by sisters Lizzie and Emma. Incidents taken from historical accounts show a brutal household. Papa Borden killed all Lizzie’s pigeons — “Why Are All These Heads Off?” — and he may have abused the girls — “This Is Not Love.” And why did Lizzie burn her dress after the murders? “Burn the Thing Up.”
In the first act the costumes are modest 19th-century garb, but for the second act the dresses come off and the black corsets stay on (Lizzie’s, of course, is white; the others sport black). The talented cast proved that no show needs more than a minimal set if you can’t tear your eyes or ears away. Much use is made of benches and, of course, a table set for whacks. And there’s plenty of room for plenty of bad things to happen in Fall River and good things to happen in Cleveland. Rock on ladies! And next time, how about a longer run?
Laura Kennelly is a freelance arts journalist, a member of the Music Critics Association of North America, and an associate editor of BACH, a scholarly journal devoted to J. S. Bach and his circle.Listening to and learning more about music has been a life-long passion. She knows there’s no better place to do that than the Cleveland area.