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Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story
Book, Music and Lyrics by Stephen Dolginoff
Directed by Lee Peters
At Bailiwick Repertory
1229 W. Belmont Avenue
Chicago, IL
Call 773-883-1090, tickets $25 - $30
Wednesdays & Thursdays at 8 PM
Saturdays at 6 PM
Sundays at 3 PM
Running time is 90 minutes with no intermission
Through October 8, 2006
Fine melodies and rich voices save strange chamber musical
Stephen Dolginoff struts his talents with a melodic score containing a mixture of hauntingly beautiful melodies and pleasant tunes. Too bad the subject matter happens to be the two rich brats whose goal in life seems to be “Thrill Me. “ I just can’t accept why this subject deserves the excellent score from Dolginoff and the fine voices from Scott Gryder as Nathan Leopold and Eric Martin as Richard Loeb. And I’m not sure what the story is trying to achieve?
While tastefully told, it is Leopold’s story that attempts to explain why he and Loeb killed 12 year old Bobby Franks in 1924 simply for the thrill of it. It doesn’t try to justify the horrible act nor does it dig enough to explain how two privileged upper class college educated twenty year olds would escalate from petty theft to arson of abandon building to murder.
Nathan Leopold was a sex slave to Richard Loeb. Loeb was a psychopathic, dominatingly charismatic personality whose boredom led to his insatiable appetite for wilder thrills. Loeb is a pure sociopath and Leopold is the emotionally dependant whose guilt and sense of ethics is overwhelmed by his sexual lust for Richard Loeb. We hear Scott Gryder gently sing Leopold’s hopes, fears and dreams while we meet the manipulator Loeb whose domination of Leopold was complete.
Sung wonderfully by Gryder and Martin, Thrill Me unfolds as a chamber musical long on sensuality and short on in depth motivation. Yet there is something compelling and enticing about Thrill Me. We become fascinating by the power of Loeb’s dominance and we strain to understand Leopold’s attraction to Loeb. Dolginoff’s story offers a new explanation as to how and why Leopold’s eye glasses were found at the crime scene.
Gary Edward’s terrific piano work and Gryder and Martin’s singing carried the piece. This intriguingly strange work is worth seeing as it warns us about the hypnotic strength of sexual dominance.
Recommended
Tom Williams
Tom99@chicagocritic.com for comments
Talk Theatre in Chicago podcast
Date Reviewed: September 6, 2006
Jeff Recommended
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