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Location, location, location
"Christie in Love' at Eastern State Penitentiary
Steve Cohen
Christie in Love has haunted me since I saw it during the Philadelphia Fringe Festival last month.
This play was first performed at London's Royal Court Theater in 1970, and most recently was staged at the Centre Theater in Norristown, so it's not site-specific. But no other setting could approach the emotional impact of its Philadelphia performances in a cellblock at Eastern State Penitentiary. The prison's moldy and echoing corridors, in tandem with John Doyle's gripping direction, added chills to the short one-act work by the British playwright Howard Brenton.
Christie in Love concerns the serial killer John Christie, who murdered at least six women between 1943 and 1953 before he was caught, tried and hanged. England's ban on capital punishment came about largely because of the scandal that erupted when another, innocent man was hanged before Christie was revealed as the true killer.
The production opens with audience and cast wading through crumpled newspapers that remind us of the public's fascination with this crime as well as other grisly cases. Then the play shows London's police searching Christie's garden for his victim's remains.
As the police dig up Christie's garden, they share obscene limericks and speculate about how the "tarts" murdered by Christie might have behaved. A police inspector (Luke Moyer) brags about how tough he is; but both he and his smart-aleck constable (Adam Altman) become sickened when they learn the details of Christie's crimes.
With the aid of a life-size doll, we see how Christie murdered his victims and then had sex with them. Christie himself is portrayed by Ray Saraceni as a meek and bespectacled middle-aged man, so ordinary-looking that he recalls Hannah Arendt's description of Adolph Eichmann as an emblem of the "banality of evil."
Christie in Love is less a play about Christie than an excoriation of the public's prurience. Yet the play itself is prurient, and some viewers are angered by its sex and violence. I found it to be a spooky short story with convincing and mesmerizing impersonations by each of the three actors.
This play was first performed at London's Royal Court Theater in 1970, and most recently was staged at the Centre Theater in Norristown, so it's not site-specific. But no other setting could approach the emotional impact of its Philadelphia performances in a cellblock at Eastern State Penitentiary. The prison's moldy and echoing corridors, in tandem with John Doyle's gripping direction, added chills to the short one-act work by the British playwright Howard Brenton.
Christie in Love concerns the serial killer John Christie, who murdered at least six women between 1943 and 1953 before he was caught, tried and hanged. England's ban on capital punishment came about largely because of the scandal that erupted when another, innocent man was hanged before Christie was revealed as the true killer.
The production opens with audience and cast wading through crumpled newspapers that remind us of the public's fascination with this crime as well as other grisly cases. Then the play shows London's police searching Christie's garden for his victim's remains.
As the police dig up Christie's garden, they share obscene limericks and speculate about how the "tarts" murdered by Christie might have behaved. A police inspector (Luke Moyer) brags about how tough he is; but both he and his smart-aleck constable (Adam Altman) become sickened when they learn the details of Christie's crimes.
With the aid of a life-size doll, we see how Christie murdered his victims and then had sex with them. Christie himself is portrayed by Ray Saraceni as a meek and bespectacled middle-aged man, so ordinary-looking that he recalls Hannah Arendt's description of Adolph Eichmann as an emblem of the "banality of evil."
Christie in Love is less a play about Christie than an excoriation of the public's prurience. Yet the play itself is prurient, and some viewers are angered by its sex and violence. I found it to be a spooky short story with convincing and mesmerizing impersonations by each of the three actors.
What, When, Where
Christie in Love. By Howard Brenton; John Doyle directed. Iron Age Theater Company production for Philadelphia Fringe Festival, September 3-17, 2011 at Eastern State Penitentiary, 2027 Fairmount Ave.; also at Centre Theater, 208 DeKalb St., Norristown, Pa. www.ironagetheatre.org.
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