Boston Herald, June 6, 2001 "Killer Joe," by Tracy Letts, presented by the TheatreZone, at the Actors Workshop, Boston, through June 17. Tracy Letts' "Killer Joe" features a family, the innocuously named Smiths, that would be right at home on "Jerry Springer." And it's a murder plot that brings them together. The plan is concocted by Chris Smith, a 22-year-old loser on the lam from some drug dealers, who convinces his pot-smoking father, Ansel, to hire a contract killer named Joe to kill Chris' mom (Ansel's much loathed ex-wife) for her insurance money. Complications arise when the pair can't come up with the advance money for Joe, a laconic Dallas police detective with a lucrative side business who's a bit like Joe Friday in a black Stetson. Joe's solution? To take Chris' sister Dottie as a retainer until he gets his money. Such is the setup of this edgy, often funny and downright disturbing white trash black comedy that premiered in Chicago in 1993 and has had successful productions in London and New York. It was performed in Wellfleet last summer; the current production, presented by the TheaterZone, marks its Boston premiere. No doubt the scheming ways of this most dysfunctional family won't be to everyone's taste (nor will the onstage nudity), but Letts is a talented playwright who knows how to blend deadpan comedy with a palpable sense of menace. His influences are many - from the black comedies of Joe Orton and Sam Shepard to Hitchcock and tabloid television - and he uses them for an audacious piece of pulp theater. It might break down a bit toward the end, and the climax is, at best, inconclusive. However, up to that point "Killer Joe" is a deft, if off-putting, comedy of ill manners. The TheatreZone production, directed by Danielle Fauteux Jacques, does a good job at capturing the play's mix of broad comedy, nasty violence and sweet romance. Marianna Bassham plays Dottie with a kind of endearing daffiness (think Lisa Kudrow) that offers a much-needed counterpoint to the more crudely played machinations of her family. Of them, Joshua Wolkomir is able to suggest there may be more to Chris than first meets the eye. Rick Carpenter is solid as Ansel, the low-life patriarch who is more interested in smoking pot and watching television than helping his son out of a life-threatening jam, and Sarah Isenberg is quite good at suggesting his young wife Sharla's voracious sexuality and duplicitous nature. Ken Flott plays Joe as a comic-book caricature of a James Dean- type, conveying his steely misanthropy well. There are plenty of laughs, mostly at the audacity of these characters, but be forewarned that when "Killer Joe" turns violent, it's an ugly display. Yet without the violence, "Killer Joe" would be like some misbegotten television pilot. Letts' play is a nasty commentary on greed and violence told in an over-the-top style that, in the end, questions our own capacity to ridicule and feel pain. Theater Mirror Review TheatreZone was founded in 1995 to produce innovative and socially significant theatre, and to make participation in the arts accessible to the community both as audience and participant through affordable prices, training opportunities for youth and adults, non-traditional casting, opportunities for artists to experiment and create new work, and the creation of a home for the arts in Chelsea MA: The Chelsea Theatre Works. I have no idea where TheatreZone's Artistic Director Danielle Fauteux Jacques finds such exciting plays (before Coyote did their excellent production of Neil Labute's "Bash" she did her own excellent production.) nor the fearless actors she gets to do them. Their production of "Killer Joe" by Tracy Letts illustrates every aspect of the TheatreZone manifesto. The play itself is a boldly original essay in real-time realism in which a family of poor-white Texas trash contract the murder of their divorced mother (counting on $50,000 of insurance) with a rogue detective on the Dallas police force. The "retainer" he demands --- since they cannot pay his fee up-front, as is his usual m.o. --- is the family's innocently naive sister (virgin at 22); but best laid plans...and there is gunplay, nudity, bloodshed, domineering sexual and physical abuse, threats, counterthreats, subterfuge, revelations, and double-crosses in this often hilarious slice of low-life. This is a contemporary equivalent of "Tobacco Road", with the t-v eternally on, and sometimes turned up so loud no one onstage can hear what's going on. There is a lot of ridiculous bickering in this play, largely among Rick Carpenter as Ansel, Joshua Wolkimer as his son Chris, and Sarah Isenberg as his floozy new wife. There is less a Southern or Texas accent here than a tawdry trashy rhythm to their outbursts and shouting matches. Marianna Bassham's Dottie, however, though she's a chronic sleep-walker and may be retarded, is always direct, honest, and sincere. That is also true of Ken Flott's Joe, who becomes the real motor of the show the moment he walks in. "His eyes hurt," is Dottie's assessment of him, and eventually he inflicts considerable pain with more than mere glances. This is not a man to be lied to nor double-crossed lightly. Tracy Letts cuts off the ends of his scenes as abruptly as a screenplay would, but the cramped and messy trailer-camp set , designed by Karine Albano with props by Tricia Dunphy, is the same throughout, and within each scene the playing is comfortable, naturalistic ensemble work every inch of the way. This is the spiteful south of "The Little Foxes" where power needn't get physical unless absolutely necessary, but a smoldering subtext of violence, when it finally erupts, is beautifully, brutally, convincingly portrayed. Scenes involving total nudity and graphically punishing fellatio, beatings and shootings, are as honestly played as off-hand discussions of matricide and procuring. Yet, given these unscrupulous characters, there may be guffaws at their blatant honesty but the actors never waver in their integrity. Wolkimer and Carpenter are believable buffoons, Isenberg an unscrupulous slut, but while Flott's eyes hurt with assured power, Bassham's hurt with wounded innocence. This is a stunning cast, and the play pulls surprising performances out of four actor I had seen elsewhere. Obviously, though this play may not be for the squeamish, TheatreZone and Danielle Fauteux Jacques must be doing something right. Catch it if you can. www.pmpnetwork.com Review KILLER JOE Review by Norm Gross At Boston's Actors Workshop is TheatreZone's production of " Killer Joe," a new play by Tracy Letts. First produced successfully in Chicago in 1993 and later favorably staged in London, Edinburgh and New York, this production marks its Boston premiere. Set in a trailer-home in contemporary Texas, the plot concerns Chris a young, male, drug-runner, in his early 20's; Ansel, his middle-aged, unemployed father; and Ansel's attractive, young, new wife Sharla. Chris, fearing for his life, is in desperate need of a large amount of cash for an overdue drug payment, and devises a devilish money-making scheme, with his father to save himself. Learning that Chris' mother ( Ansel's divorced first-wife ) has a hefty life insurance policy, they decide to engage a professional assasin to murder her! Killer Joe Cooper, a local policeman (and regular assassin-for-hire ) agrees to carry out their plan. However, when Chris is unable to provide him with a large initial cash down-payment, Killer Joe suggests a startling alternative! He'll accept Dottie, Chris' young, virginal 20 year old sister, as a " retainer"-- with surprisingly comic and devastating consequences! Extremely well acted by Ken Flott in the title role, with fine assistance from Joshua Wolkomir as Chris, Rick Carpenter as Ansel, Sarah Isenberg as Sharla, and most especially, Marianna Bassham as "the pure " Dottie. This provocative black-comedy scores memorably under Danielle Fauteux Jacques' assured direction. Please be forewarned: this play's action does involve brief full-frontal nudity ( male and female ), and a brutally graphic, simulated sexual encounter! Now playing through June 17.

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