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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 2, 2001)
Wi at would you do for love? Would you defy social conven tions? Would you break the rules? Would you commit murder? What if you were young and passionate about everything? What if the object of your love was a golden boy everyone admired, someone for whom you’ve had a deep, painful crush? What if he promised to love you both physically and emotionally if you only agreed to follow him where the dark side of his heart led? Artists Repertory Theatre’s powerful pro duction of John Logan’s play Never the Sinner prompts these disturbing questions. “1 want to make the audience uneasy,” director Jon Kretzu says. “I want the audience to see themselves in Leopold and Loeb. Because if we see our selves in the killers, we can no longer dismiss them as mere monsters.” Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeh were young men—boys, really— who in 1924 abducted and brutally killed a younger boy to prove their superiority. Their “trial of the century” touched off a media frenzy of a sort we are now all too familiar with. Clarence Darrow came to their defense and, despite their guilty plea, managed to save them from the gallows. That much is history. Logan’s play, bril liantly staged by Kretzu, takes us far below the surface of what otherwise might be dismissed as just an early media-inspired pseudo-event. The play is fast, fluid and totally engross ing. It succeeds in keeping the audience just slightly off balance. Slogans that have been used for decades to beat up gays and lesbians come out of the mouths of the heroes of the play, and they turn out to be true. For instance, Darrow, surely one of the good guys, justifies his defense of the two young murderers by saying, “I may well hate that sin, but never the sinner,” which, of course, gives the play its title. How many times have we heard the religious right say they hate the sin of homosexuality but love the sinner— an empty and meaningless cover for their bigotry. And here’s Darrow saying the same thing. But given the context—he’s trying to save the lives of these two self-confessed sinners— it makes perfect sense. And then there’s the psychiatrist who testi fies at the trial. He tells the court that Leopold and Loeb suffer from “arrested emotional development.” Not so long ago, when homosexuality was considered a mental illness, it often was “diag nosed” as the result of arrested development. But here the expert witness is testifying for the defense, and he heroically resists the prosecu tor’s badgering by refusing to declare that the defendants are insane. The play reveals that his diagnosis is right, at least concerning Loeb. Throughout the sec ond act we see emerging slowly, out from under the glib and confident veneer of the controlling member of the pair of killers, a frightened boy who clings to his teddy bear and wants desperately to please his mother. Disturbing, too, are the play’s great ironies. Darrow gets to inveigh mightily against the death penalty. His words are powerful and convincing. But we cannot help but shudder when he says Lives hanging in the balance Michael Burke (left) stars as Leopold along with David Wells as Loeh of his condemnation of capital punish ment, “I know the future is with me and what I stand for here.” The day after this production premiered, we inaugurated as president of the United States a man who personally has approved of more than 160 executions. Another irony lies in the fact that the sexual relationship between the two young men barely is mentioned explic itly in the script. It might he possible to overlook it entirely, except it never leaves the stage. The actors, Michael Burke as Leopold and David Wells as Loeb, create a subtle and believable sexual tension between their characters right from the start. In fact, it begins even before the play does as the two gaze at one another across the empty stage while the audience enters the auditorium. Although the tension is always present, it does not remain constant. It shrinks, it grows, it changes color as the The actors... create a subtle and believable sexual tension between their characters right from the start. relationship between the two boys changes. And change it does. As Leopold becomes less dependent and more self-assured, Loeh becomes more vulnerable. Although Burke is in fact bigger than Wells all along, by the end of the play the two almost seem to change size, and in the cli mactic scene Leopold tow ers over his once-dominant partner. The most important strength of Never the Sinner is that although it is certain ly a play of ideas, it is also a play of feelings and passions. And atmc^sphere. Entering the theater, the audience enters the Jazz Age. Brassy music plays as characters lounge and pose in the spaces surrounding the raised wooden platform that will he the locus of the play’s action. The platform becomes many things as the play progresses— a meadow, a courtroom, a swamp, a country club terrace— but it never loses the rough-hewn and temporary look of a gallows. The one wall of the set is covered by a collage of blown-up newspaper headlines. It is broken by alcoves that contain an odd assortment of objects— stuffed birds, pages of music score, a menorah, a hammer. The signifi cance of the objects only will become clear as the drama unfolds. Thanks to Tim Stapleton’s imaginative design, the set almost becomes another character in the play. Costumes, too, effectively set and maintain the feel of the roaring 70s. The staging of the play presents problems for the costume design er— the actors are never out of view of the audience, even when they are not directly involved in the action. Except perhaps to put on or take off a hat, they have no opportunity to change clothes, which means we, the audience, have to ignore the fact that Leopold and Loeb are wearing the same suits whether they are on a picnic or at a baseball game or in the courtroom or in prison. The script isn’t kind, either— at one point Loeb complains bitterly about getting his suit muddy and says he will have to throw it away, but we mustn’t notice that he still is wearing it in his next scene. Costume designer Sarah Andrews-Collier’s choices are perfect. They clearly reflect the style of the period but never intrude on the scene. Taken as a whole, the play succeeds in evoking a long-ago era that nonetheless seems contemporary. Maybe it’s because we still are debating the death penalty. Maybe it’s because we hear so much today about youth gone wild, alx>ut senseless crimes, about celebrity trials. Maybe it’s because the headlines the actors yell at us to punctuate the scenes sound exactly like the headlines that scream at us from the tabloid racks at the supermarket. Whatever the cause, the effect is that although we know the trial ended decades ago and all the characters are dead by now, we are left with a sense that the story is not really over. Never the Sinner deals seriously with serious issues, hut its ultimate effect is neither morbid nor depressing. Late in the play, Leopold asks Loeh, “What if we never committed the mur der?” And that question lingers like a ray of hope over the final scene, which daringly takes us back to before the beginning of the action, before the irreversible deed has been done. As we watch these as-yet'-innocent young men, we can’t help wondering what if they could have loved each other without having to defy stifling social conventions? What if their need to break the rules hadn’t made them feel superior, hadn’t fueled the Nietzschean fan tasies that led them to think they were Super men? Seeing them in this moment long before the crime is committed, we can hope that they will come to their senses, that they won’t do it, even though we know they will. Artists Repertory Theatre is a jewel Port land is lucky to have. It consistently stages challenging plays in productions that rival the best theater anywhere. It deserves our support. The least we can do is to go see its plays. j n N ever th e S inner plays 8p.m . Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday and 7 p m. Tuesday to Thursday through Feb. 25 at 1516S.W. Alder St. For ticket informatum call 503-241 -/ ART ANDY S imon is a teacher and theater lover who lives in Southeast Portland.
