Killer Joe is intense and well acted, yet soulless

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      By Tracy Letts. Directed by Chelsea Haberlin. Presented by Itsazoo Productions. In the parking lot of the Italian Cultural Centre on Friday, April 18. Continues until May 4

      It’s porn—violent, degrading porn. But it’s very well produced.

      In Killer Joe, Tracy Letts, who also wrote Bug and August: Osage County—both of which Vancouver has seen recently—goes to white-trash Texas, apparently sometime in the early ’70s. Chris shows up at his dad’s trailer home because his mom has stolen the cocaine he was planning to sell to pay off a loan shark. Chris figures he knows how to save his life: he and his dad, Ansel, should hire Killer Joe, a corrupt cop, to murder Chris’s mother, and then collect on her life-insurance policy. They can’t afford Joe’s down payment, though, so they agree to hand over Dottie, Chris’s innocent, brain-damaged, 23-year-old sister, for Joe’s sexual use.

      The big, condescending joke in Killer Joe is that poor people are stupid pigs. “You wanna kill somebody?” Chris drawls. “You can’t even tell time.”

      Then there’s the presentation of women. The two female characters are a conniving bitch—we see Sharla, Ansel’s current wife, setting up a date with a lover early on—and the childlike Dottie. Both are graphically sexually abused; watching when Joe turned his attention to Dottie, I felt like a voyeur at the molestation of a child. And this all happens within touching distance of the audience. (The production uncurls itself in a commercial trailer that’s parked in the lot of the Italian Cultural Centre.)

      Still, like it or not, the perversity is riveting. Letts has built a complex trap of a plot. And, directed by Chelsea Haberlin, this mounting from Itsazoo Productions realizes much of the script’s sensationalistic and dramatic potential.

      Newcomer Meaghan Chenosky, who trained at UBC, is compellingly responsive as Dottie. Every tic feels authentic: the way she chortles, the way she steals a glance. Sebastien Archibald, who has established himself as a serious actor in the past couple of years, is bone-deep true as Chris. Ted Cole is strong as Ansel. And Emma Slipp (Sharla) reaches a truly frightening level of desperation. The night I attended, Colby Wilson, who has the hardest job, sometimes strained a bit for authority as Joe off the top, but by the time he was sexually assaulting people, the dominance was simply there.

      Staging the show in a trailer is a great idea. Lauchlin Johnston’s set design is perfect—right down to the little troll doll—and his flickering fluorescent lighting is good and creepy. Carmen Alatorre’s costumes, including some witty funeral wear, are spot-on. And Mishelle Cuttler’s audio design, which includes a manically sped-up radio evangelist, is loneliness made into sound.

      But Killer Joe is still porn. Minimally concerned with empathy and insight, it’s a largely soulless exercise in intensity. By presenting violence against women—and violence in general—as entertainment, Killer Joe numbs the heart instead of awakening it.

      Comments

      8 Comments

      ITSAZOO Productions

      Apr 22, 2014 at 2:01pm

      Hi Colin,

      Thanks for coming! It means a lot to us to get coverage from you guys and let Vancouverites know what we're up to and start a dialogue about this challenging and controversial piece. We're hoping to explore some of the criticisms you brought up at both of our upcoming post-show Talk Backs - Thurs, April 24th and Thurs, May 1st. Though some share your viewpoints on the show most others have commented on it being a commentary on the desperation necessitated by poverty and that it's a reaction to misogyny and even post-feminist. Either way it's sparking a lot of dialogue! If you'd be interested in coming to one of the Talk Backs let us know. We look forward to chatting about this and more with our audiences.

      FYI, the line quoted above from the play is spoken by Chris not Sharla.

      Thanks,
      The ZooCrew

      ColinThomasGS

      Apr 22, 2014 at 2:40pm

      Thanks ZooCrew. I'll let you know if I can make that first talkback. And thanks for pointing out my error. I'll get that fixed.

      out at night

      Apr 23, 2014 at 9:52am

      "The big, condescending joke in Killer Joe is that poor people are stupid pigs."

      Thanks for coming to the defense of us poor folks Mr. Thomas, but isn't this comment exactly like saying that the joke in Hamlet is that royalty are all crazy, depressive murderers; or that the 'gag' in Romeo and Juliet is that noble families can't seem to keep from killing each other? (And if you're thinking, "Well, actually...", then my response would be, "Exactly.")

      Spend some serious time dwelling in the trailer zones of Texas, THEN tell me what you know about this demographic! I'm sure you'll find some fine, charming, upstanding folks; just as I'm sure you'd encounter clutches of fools who make the gang in Killer Joe look like the Cunninghams of Happy Days.

      ColinThomasGS

      Apr 23, 2014 at 10:29am

      For me, the difference, outatnight, is that Shakespeare treats Hamlet, Romeo, and Juliet with respect. I don't think Tracy Letts does the same with his characters. Do you think that showing a woman fellating a KFC drumstick isn't, on some level, a classist joke?

      out at night

      Apr 24, 2014 at 9:11am

      The drumstick scene: out there, controversial, fraught with some sort of symbolic meaning to be sure, but what? What does it symbolize, or why did it get in there exactly?

      Classist? It's there as a "joke" at the expense of the trailer trash class? Personally I saw no such condescension as you did, even if I felt that yes, KFC is a sort of touchstone for poor folks. I personally thought it had some connection to the fact that Joe is a cop, and what he's doing is making the whole family choke on his authority and is using their own ignorance, poverty, greed and bad decisions against them. Joe is definitely smarter than any of them. He's a snake. They are desperate but he's not; he's malevolent.

      It's like Letts is saying, "Oh you think you're clever, you think you can get one over, get away with something? Oh, but you're poor? Well, sorry, but some local cop's got your number and you're goin' down!"

      Ummm...

      Apr 25, 2014 at 1:41pm

      Isn't porn supposed to arouse us in some way? There's nothing arousing about what's depicted in this play. Unless you're a real sicko. But I think what it really comes down to is was it the author's intent for his audience to be turned on by the explicit acts? Disgust or horrify us - Probably. Make us uncomfortable - Definitely. Turn us on? Not by a long shot. As for the treatment of women - it's hard to discuss as I don't want to give anything away but - doesn't the ending speak for itself? Think you may have missed a pretty integral point here.

      what's the conversation?

      Apr 27, 2014 at 9:57am

      I applaud the company and creative team - this production is truly masterful - but like sitting through Letts' BUG earlier this season i constantly have to wonder what is the conversation he's trying to have with the audience? And if he's not trying to have a conversation and he's just trying to show that life is bleak then why is an audience to be subjected to it?

      I think you've nailed it, Colin. And as one of our most revered contemporary playwrights, I want to talk about and unpack Letts - I love the conversation happening so far... tell me more - what am I missing? Because all I see is misogyny and privilege. I don't think he has real empathy for his own characters.

      ITSAZOO Productions

      Apr 27, 2014 at 5:51pm

      @what's the conversation

      Thanks! For us, the purpose was to create a visceral experience for the audience and invite them to live inside the story; to experience a world they may not know and actually get a sense of living inside a genre. In this case crime fiction and noir. So what's the conversation? Like most stories of this genre it functions as a cautionary tale of the consequences of letting evil into your life; it explores the downward spiral of bad decisions and developing a conscience too late. In a world where there are countless examples of people being rewarded with fame and money for bad judgment and bad decisions and acts of selfishness, we found it refreshing to tell a story where horrible actions are met with horrible consequences. There's a satisfying karmic justice at work here in-keeping with the styles and motifs of the genre.

      By making a horrible choice these characters invite evil into their lives. And evil happens to be charming and gentlemanly but also psychopathic, violent, and misogynistic. Letts is toying with southern tropes here in the form of the Southern Gentleman and Southern Hospitality as well as the noir trope of corrupt authority.

      Is a production more justified if it wallows in excessive positivity (like a frivolous feel-good musical) than excessive negativity? We think all experiences are valid and all feelings worthy: joy and sadness; love and apathy; pleasure and disgust, etc. So Killer Joe can stand proudly along side, say, The Lion King as offering an equally valid, but altogether different, experience.