Ashley Ivey (left) and Joe Brack star as notorious gay 20th-century killers Leopold and Loeb in a tightly acted production of ‘Never the Sinner’ produced by the Actors’ Theater of Washington. (Photo by Ray Gniewek)
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PATRICK FOLLIARD
Friday, October 27, 2006
If only Nathan Leopold had stuck to bird watching. Instead, the brilliant Chicago college student and ornithologist put down his binoculars and succumbed to the charms of the equally brainy, angel-faced extrovert Richard Loeb. Together, Leopold and his new college pal joined in committing one of the most notorious crimes of the 20th century.
Wealthy, good-looking and gay, Leopold and Loeb believed morals were for chumps. In the Actors’ Theater of Washington’s rock-solid production of gay playwright John Logan’s “Never the Sinner,” the smug pair’s meeting, philosophy in action and subsequent trial unfolds non-chronologically in two well-acted, imaginatively-staged acts.
Eager to prove they are real-life Nietzsche supermen capable of remorselessly pulling off the perfect crime, Leopold and Loeb kidnap and murder 14-year-old Bobby Franks in the spring of 1924. Their big plan to get away with murder implodes when Leopold forgets his fancy glasses at the crime scene, a desolate culvert where the killers have dumped young Franks’ nude, lifeless body.
So, Loeb’s rich father calls in family friend and famed defense attorney Clarence Darrow. The old Scopes monkey trial vet instructs the boys to plead guilty and then fights like hell to save their pretty necks from the hangman’s noose.
THOUGH THERE ARE plenty of references to the hoopla surrounding the trial, playwright Logan — who’s also penned big screenplays like “Gladiator” and “The Aviator” — hasn’t written a sensational script. Mostly he focuses on the boys’ cold brand of sophistication and creepy absence of emotion. Even the boys’ lovemaking is too thought out; in exchange for sex, Leopold commits prescribed, increasingly serious criminal acts dreamt up by Loeb.
“Never the Sinner’s” gay director Jeffrey Johnson has cleverly and quite successfully reworked Logan’s 1985 play (much of which is taken directly from court transcripts). By paring down the cast from eight to just three actors, Johnson effectively intensifies the white-hot spotlight trained on the two sartorially smart killers. His tightly blocked Leopold and Loeb engage in an enthralling two-hour tête-è-tête, interrupted by frenetic eruptions of foreplay.
Johnson, who is also ATW’s artistic director, partly envisions the murder trial as low-brow entertainment, complete with lots of jazzy ‘20s tunes. In fact, the three-man cast dons straw hats and soft shoes through the interrogation scene as if it were a little vaudeville number. Intermittently throughout the show, huge, salacious headlines and sepia-toned still photos are projected onto Erik D. Diaz’s courtroom set. A circus-like ring lit by bare bulbs encircles the defense table around which most of the play’s action takes place.
Ashley Ivey’s Leopold is appropriately superior and a bit nerdy. He skillfully portrays the way his character subjugates what little common sense he possesses to his love/lust for Loeb. As Loeb, the inspiration of mash notes, and a newspaper-sponsored contest asking girls if they’d go on a date with the killer, Joe Brack alternates from maniacally friendly with his boyish nods and flashing smiles to disdainful murderer.
Briefly, Ivey and Brack slip into other roles, mostly trial witnesses. With great versatility, the terrific John C. Bailey plays everyone else: including a folksy Darrow; Robert Crowe, the ambitious but beleaguered prosecuting attorney; and one of Loeb’s not-too-smart girlfriends.
“Never the Sinner” ends without revealing the defendants’ fates. The play’s final image is that of two smart, gay boys meeting at college, clearly smitten, and thrilled to learn just how much they hold in common.
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