Pictured Wuornos play.Self Defense, or death of some salesman
Playwright: Carson Kreitzer
At: Rivendell at Steppenwolf Garage Theatre, 1624 N. Halsted
Phone: ( 312 ) 335-1650; $20
Runs through: Dec. 19
BY RICK REED
I've always had a fascination for Aileen Wuornos, whose death by lethal injection in October of 2002 marked the end of one of the most controversial and enigmatic murder cases in American history. Wuornos' death provides yet another reason for the abolition of capital punishment because this troubled, tortured woman, who killed seven men in Florida ( all clients from her days as a hitchhiking prostitute in the late 1980s and early 1990s ) , left behind a legacy demonstrating wild incompetence through her unsteady course through the Florida judicial system, manipulation by those who used her infamy in a grasp for their own fame and fortune, and an ignorance of Wuornos' own mental instability. 'Lee's' odd mix of belligerence and hunger for attention allowed her to pave her own way to the lethal injection IV; but she had plenty of help along the way.
Wuornos' story makes for compelling drama, steeped in seediness ( Wuornos frequented biker bars and her killings took place in the dense saw-palmetto-choked Floridian woods ) , and defined by a woman whose character flaws ( including an insatiable hunger for love ) never allowed her a chance to properly adjust herself to societal norms. There's also sensationalism ( the media dubbed her, inaccurately, America's first female serial killer; she was adopted by a fundamentalist Christian who initially contacted Wuornos when Jesus told her to; plus she was defended by an attorney who had no murder trial experience and who urged her, against all reason, to plead no contest to most of her murder charges ) . Wuornos' wild claims that she acted in self-defense in all seven of the killings also inspired the fascination with this very public case.
Playwright Carson Kreitzer has done her homework. She deftly weaves in bits and pieces from Wuornos' past: a patchwork quilt of abuse, abandonment, and a very bent family tree to offer rationale for her killing spree. She bolsters her dialogue with actual quotes from Wuornos, which often fall into the realm of truth is stranger than fiction ( for example, when she tells the first judge who sentenced her to death that she hoped his wife and daughters were 'raped up the ass', those were Wuornos' actual words ) . In addition to a strongly researched background, Kreitzer offers a complex structure that allows for the fluid change of identities of characters ( all but Wuornos' portrayer, Tara Mallen, flesh out multiple roles ) and dialogue segues that move from legalese to forensic science to the ravings and despair of Wuornos' dealings with her female lover, who ultimately betrayed her. These changes may reflect not only the jumble of Wuornos' thought processes, but also the chorus of different voices and opinions that made a travesty of Wuornos' life and her chances for any kind of fairness in a courtroom.
Director Edward Sobel's staging makes good use of the Steppenwolf garage theater space, positioning the audience around the production ( some sitting in what appears to be jury boxes or tables and stools from bars ) . He makes us a part of the action, and not merely witnesses to it, so that the story and the emotions driving it resonate.
Like Lizzie Borden, Wuornos is a killer whose true story will never be known with any certainty. Already, with reams of paper and yards of celluloid devoted to her tale, Wuornos is morphing into legend. Kreitzer's take on legend rings true and its buoyed up by remarkable performances by Mallen and Brandy McClendon as Lu, the only person in Wuornos' life who may have loved her ( which makes her betrayal of her all the more stinging and confounding ) . This is an outstanding achievement.
Mustapha's Bride
Playwright: Michael Sokoloff
Aggravated Assault Ensemble and National Pastime Theater, 4139 N. Broadway
Phone: ( 773 ) 327-7077; $12
Runs through: Dec. 18
BY SCOTT C. MORGAN
Hey you fans of the former HBO prison series Oz. Are you in withdrawal from scenes of forced male prison sex and knock-about violence?
If you answered yes, you may want to take a chance on Mustapha's Bride, a repertory piece by the Iowa-based Aggravated Assault Ensemble now in a late-night run at the National Pastime Theatre. Though inspired by the darkly sexual and violent writings of Jean Genet, Mustapha's Bride certainly has plenty of the same elements found in an Oz episode.
Set in a Turkish prison, Mustapha's Bride zeros in on two long-time inmates who initiate a new guy named Paulie who is locked up on what he claims are trumped-up drug charges. There's plenty of violent fighting, some male nudity and simulated digital penetration ( just how many fingers are up to debate ) as the hardened criminals Danny and Diva break down Paulie's resistance and prepare him to become the next romantic accessory to an unseen prison ruler named Mustapha.
Aggravated Assault Ensemble artistic director Michael Sokoloff is one who believes in pushing actors to their physical and violent limits, which is clearly seen in his work in Mustapha's Bride. As an established fight director, Sokoloff skillfully maneuvers his actors as they pummel and throw each other around the stage.
Sokoloff's writing is blunt as befits the situation, though he finds time for Danny and Diva to share their poetic sides. Finding similes to Busby Berkeley films and other dance routines, Danny and Diva occasionally philosophize about the unrelenting physicality of their lives. Whether Turkish prisoners really think about such things is a pointed question, though the cultural references no doubt will be picked up by cultured guys in the audience who secretly harbor prison sex fantasies.
Played out against the same junkyard set as the other National Pastime show Middle Aged White Guys, Mustapha's Bride benefits from the gritty backgrounds and Peter Munyon's colored pools of lighting. It just doesn't translate Mustapha's Brides' Turkish jail setting too well.
Another problem is a weak link in the trio of performers. As the respectively bitchy and helpful prisoners Diva and Danny, Kehry Anson Lane and Bryan Burgess are up to the task of talking and beating sense into the new guy. But as Paulie, Ryan Dean Karloff doesn't exude the early confidence and hidden fear of a well-to-do man who claims to have connections to get him out. Physically, Karloff's performance is technically fine, though it would benefit from a more realistic sense of impudence and emotional fear underneath.
At a speedy hour's length, Mustapha's Bride also lasts about the same running time as an Oz episode. So if an interesting prison sex drama is up your alley, make a date with Mustapha's Bride. If not, stay at home amid the re-run safety of that other recently completed gay-targeted HBO series Sex and the City.
Relevant Hearsay … Stories of 57
Playwright: Shepsu Aakhu
At: Ma'at Production Association of Afrikan Theatre at
Victory Gardens Theatre, 2257 N. Lincoln
Phone: ( 773 ) 871-3000 $20
Runs through: Dec. 19
By Catey Sullivan
'Don't you hush me. And don't you let nobody hush you either. Life is too short.' Those words come from a dying ranch hand named Big Time late in the second act of the warm, richly drawn series of stories that comprise the Ma'at Production Association of Afrikan Centered Theatre's Relevant Hearsay … Stories from 57.
The stories are those of Shirley Carney, who at age 50, took Big Time's command to heart and penned a series of autobiographical tales.
Adapted for the stage by Shepsu Aakhu, the stories unspool like a winding highway, traveling from hot, deadly sharecropping fields, to crowded urban barrooms to the front parlors of small-town widows.
Directed by Mignon Nance, an ensemble of four moves in and out of various characters and stories with the ease of water rushing through fingers.
The cast is backed by a guitar/harmonica/percussion ensemble that evokes the frantic energy of a revival meeting, the solitary ache of a broken heart and the hypnotic rhythm of an outbound train with equal power.
The stories build in momentum, increasing in intensity and culminating in a testimony so brutal that, as the narrator puts it, 'it took 20 years to write it down.'
What vividly takes shape without props on a bare stage is the life of a woman who learned late—but not too late—to hold her head high, speak out, and revel in every inch of her own being.
Highlights in these scenes from a life include a revival meeting wherein a young girl steels herself against 'getting hit by the holy ghost.' While the music grows frenzied, the girl fearfully takes in the writing, wild-eyed, foreign-tongued chaos of spirit-possessed worshippers, and does her best to avoid similar possession by reciting her times tables with the kind of ferocious concentration that only somebody younger than 12 can muster. It's as hilarious as it is touching.
A scene of heart-tugging anguish plays out as a new widow woman deals with the death of her husband—which occurred while he was bedding another woman. 'His last act was to undress for somebody else,' she says bitterly, and then, through the clenched teeth of someone raging within, 'I should have left him when I still had love to give to someone else.'
But the most wrenching narrative comes in the penultimate scene with a story of staggering hatefulness that serves to remind audiences that—horribly—the tragedy of Emmett Till was not an isolated incident.
Even so Relevant Hearsay is not a story of violence and powerlessness, but one of hope and bravery. One hopes Carney has another 50 years worth of stories in her.
