“Mamma tried to kill me when I was little,” Beth Allen’s Dottie says casually. She’s a naïve Texan girl who lives with her trailer trash family. Killer Joe, by American playwright Tracy Lett, invites us into the trailer of the Smith family. The play opens with the bark of dogs, a knock at the door, and a nude Sarah Wiseman (with her beaver out for all the world) emerging from her bedroom to answer. Son Chris (Charlie McDermott, who continues to impress me as an actor) has been kicked out of home by his mother after beating her, so has come round to stay at his fathers (Craig Hall). Dottie comes out sleep-walking. The television set, forever on, is the centre of their universe. That should give a hint about the type of family we’re dealing with in this play.
Shall I give another? Chris has the idea of hiring a contract killer to off his mother so they can collect the life insurance that would go to Dottie. Enter Killer Joe (Colin Moy).
The play is entirely set in the Smith’s trailer (a grungy set, with couch, table, and noticeable grime down the oven side – such attention to detail!). It had me from the beginning. Starting with the brilliant conceit of the contract killing, the play has a number of twists and turns as the contract goes horribly wrong. Moy’s Joe is a remarkable figure – a man of few words, who conveys an ever threatening fearsome presence, but displays a real awkwardness when he attempts to woo Dottie. He has the best lines too – he considers women to be “black-hearted, evil and old.”
In the best traditions of “in-yer-face” theatre, the play contains many belly laughs, mixed in with some very disturbing scenes. One, involving a KFC chicken leg, had me almost physically sick. The ending, where everything comes out, involves the most thrilling, and realistic fight scene I have seen. It involves blood, a gun, and a refrigerator. The play is worth going to just to see these final two minutes alone. But on top of that it has a very clever script and characters you love to hate.
A Texas thrill-ride with some big laughs and even bigger shocks. Go see this one too.
Killer Joe plays at The Basement until October 3rd
James Wenley
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