| by Tracy Letts directed by Anton Dudley Sept 7-Oct 28, 2001 Metro Cafe For info regarding production rights to "Killer Joe," please visit our |  Joe (Christopher Henley) puts the moves on teenage Dottie (Michelle Mulitz). Photo by Augustine Van Doppleganger, 2001 |
Mom had better watch her ass! She's got a $50,000 insurance policy and an estranged family of good ol' fashioned Texas white trash a'plottin' to git it one way or 'nother. But things don't go as planned, and one fuck-up follows the next as the family's ugly undercurrents begin to surface.
Playwright Tracy Letts's sharp-tongued, decidedly unpoetic voicefuses chilling brutality with slapstick comedy in this funny-as-shit indictment of the American Way.
Killer Joe will be directed by Anton Dudley who previously directed Romeo & Juliatric and Talk Show for Cherry Red; Venus and Hair (co-director) for Studio Theatre SecondStage.
Cast: Christopher Henley (Joe), Ken Arnold (Ansel), Dan Brick (Chris), Michelle Mulitz (Dottie), Ellen Young (Sharla). Misc fucks: David Ghatan (set), Jason Milner (stage manager), Augustine van Doppelganger (costumes), Lucas Zarwell (sound).
Playwright Tracy Letts's sharp-tongued, decidedly unpoetic voicefuses chilling brutality with slapstick comedy in this funny-as-shit indictment of the American Way.
Killer Joe will be directed by Anton Dudley who previously directed Romeo & Juliatric and Talk Show for Cherry Red; Venus and Hair (co-director) for Studio Theatre SecondStage.
Cast: Christopher Henley (Joe), Ken Arnold (Ansel), Dan Brick (Chris), Michelle Mulitz (Dottie), Ellen Young (Sharla). Misc fucks: David Ghatan (set), Jason Milner (stage manager), Augustine van Doppelganger (costumes), Lucas Zarwell (sound).
The Washington Post
"'Killer Joe': Cherry Red Grows Up"
by Dolores Whiskeyman
Sept. 12, 2001
Cherry Red Productions just might be outgrowing its pimply adolescence. Washington's most resolutely juvenile theater company opened its seventh season Sunday with decidedly grown-up fare, an affecting production of a well-crafted play, Tracy Letts's trailer park tragicomedy "Killer Joe."
The story of a down-and-out drug peddler who turns to murder to make ends meet, "Killer Joe" falls well within Cherry Red's aesthetic of "smut." There's plenty of gratuitous frontal nudity, four-letter words, and generally nasty, lowlife behavior to satisfy the most ardent Cherry Red aficionado. But amid the jiggling privates and the spewing blood, director Anton Dudley manages to find an engrossing center of balance. "Killer Joe" holds with an icy grip, with a second-act resoulution that delivers a one-two punch to the heart.
The title character is a Texas lawman with a lucrative sideline -- he knocks people off for money. When the play opens, Joe's services are in demand. Chris (Dan Brick) is furious that his mother has ripped off his stash of cocaine. Now $6,000 in debt to his connection, Chris pitches a solution to his father, Ansel (Ken Arnold): Hire Joe to kill Mom and cash in on the $50,000 life insurance policy that names his 12-year-old sister, Dottie (Michelle Mulitz), as beneficiary.
Chris plans to pay Joe out of the proceeds, but Joe likes to do things by the book: $25,000 up front, no negotiations. Sometimes, however, he works on retainer -- in this case, the retainer is Dottie. Neither Ansel nor his second wife, Sharla (Ellen Young), find much to object to in this arrangement. "Hell," Ansel allows, "it'll probably do her good."
Credit Dudley's knockout cast for navigating the play's wild seings between shock and satire. Christopher Henley is mesmerizing as Joe, a soft-spoken, slow-moving, well-mannered psychopath -- in other words a class act compared to what Dottie is used to. Mulitz plays Dottie as a vulnerable nymph-child, at once attracted and frightened by Joe's slick moves.
Their scenes together are among the funniest -- and most gut-wrenching -- in the play. (Lets just say Joe comes a little more prepared than the average suitor for a romantic evening alone.) And when Henley fixes his relentless stare on Mulitz's peach-soft features, it's clear what the outcome will be. Joe gets what Joe wants -- at least until Chris, in a fit of remorse, attempts to cancel the deal.
Make no mistake: Letts's tale has plenty of holes in it; it doesn't quite come to a resolution so much as a standoff, and the raw brutality at times makes it hard to watch. But "Killer Joe" seems to be a turing point for Cherry Red. Perhaps the bad boy of Washington theater is getting past the adolescent fixations that actually undermine, rather than advance, its bid for subversive humor. Here we see genuine attention to craft, polished performances, and direction that makes the best use of a difficult space -- all hallmarks of a professional company. Welcome to adulthood.
[Cherry Red editor's note: Ms. Whiskeyman bases her conclusions on her experiences at two of our shows -- two if you count "Killer Joe."]
Metro Weekly
"Joe Cool"
by Jonathan Padget
Oct. 4, 2001
Cherry Red Productions better be careful with its marketing this season. With the black comedy "Killer Joe" -- not to mention an impressive selection of full-scale productions to come -- the self-proclaimed purveyors of smut are reaching an admirable level of artistry that is so non-smutty, someone just might call the Better Business Bureau on them.
Tracey Lets more-than-lambasts "family values" with her stark portrayal of Texas trailer trash entangled in an insurance scheme involving murder-for-hire. In so doing, the playwright reveals fresh, provocative, riveting glimpses of pain, desperation, and lust that permeate American squalor.
Director Anton Dudley orchastrates a hyper-realistic climate in which the talented actors shine, although none so brightly as Ellen Young. Her stunning rendition of the haggard coldhearted sexpot Sharla is a mustsee-performance that won't soon be forgotten.
[Cherry Red editor's note: The Better Business Bureau should know that the production contained full-frontal male and female nudity, molestation of a young girl, and a woman sucking a chicken bone to climax. Oh and Letts is a boy.]
