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Never the Sinner 

Don’t let the scaffolding and unlikely location outside of the Theater District fool you. Herein exists a play that more than earns its dive into the bathtub gin.

Armed with only a passing knowledge of Leopold and Loeb, the real-life prodigal sons of Chicago millionaires who shocked the country with a crime so cold-hearted and terrible that even Al Capone was temporarily upstaged, I was awarded with two hours of tight dialogue, constant energy and a surprisingly professional-grade multimedia experience. [See an excellent clip on Youtube.]

Written for the stage by John Logan, a Chicago playwright and graduate of Northwestern University, Never the Sinner: The Leopold and Loeb Story first premiered in Chicago in 1985 and has since gained international acclaim.

So it is fitting that the inaugural vehicle of the newly minted Project 891 Theatre Company would be a story as deeply rooted in the Chicago soil as the final home of Bobby Franks, a promising 14-year-old boy whose body rests less than two miles from the theater doors in Rosehill Cemetery.

Though a small space - small enough to catch the smell of pomade and the creaking of aged leather - the intimate staging serves to heighten the effect that we are spectators in a courtroom, the setting for much of the story. This dynamic cleverly plays into the already intrinsic role of the audience as judge and jury, weighing the arguments, ready to pass judgment.

Under the scrutinizing and careful direction of Michael Rashid, the cast pulls off a close-knit chemistry with a dazzling sense of timing. Through cramped doorways, the cast members weave in and out of a set that consists of simple wooden chairs and a cacophony of Big Band sounds and thudding flash bulbs. A video projection on the back wall provides back-story using authentic 1920s Chicago film reels spliced with footage of the actors themselves. The production value of these clips alone is worth the price of admission ($10-$15).

Even on opening night this was a tight, energetic production from beginning to end. Three reporters, using rapid-fire dialogue, act like a Shakespearean chorus on Speed to provide updates on the trial as well as historical exposition. Though frequent, the semi-darkened scene changes were quick and easy to disregard. The few slips of dialogue were minimal for an opening night and easily overlooked. Though noticeable, the handling of a dropped bow tie during a scene change was expertly concealed by a well-rehearsed familiarity with the space and appeared right on time - not to mention perfectly in place - as the lights went up.

Emotion predictably runs high at times and I must give Ron Popp (Nathan Leopold) credit for giving me the heebie-jeebies with an unforced, high-pitched laugh heavy with pretentious disdain. This is underscored by a moment of grief that left me both touched and confused. For what does he grieve? His lost freedom? The loss of his mother, which seemed to be his last connection to recognizable humanity? An unknown realization that we will never be privy to?

Additional credit is owed to the ever-present and always dreaded Drunk Scene, which was gratefully non-squirm inducing and refrained of excess, a rarity in my experience. No early-twentieth century play can seem to do without the stumbling portrayal of excessive drinking by stone-cold sober actors, a dramatic instrument that rarely works in the best of hands. Thank you, Mr. Rashid, for not overdoing it.

As for the story, how can we understand why two overly educated scions of wealth would choose to kill for the sheer thrill of it? Fortunately, Never the Sinner does not attempt to force an answer on us, choosing instead to look at this strange and warped friendship through bifocal lens, their unfathomable cruelty looming large in the forefront while their innocence, immaturity and loneliness stays out of focus yet inescapably present. Theirs is a friendship based on the isolation of class, an uneven intellectual development and a painful, secret longing. Correctly portrayed by the sometimes combative newspapers as an unrepentant killer, Loeb (Matt Hays, with surprising emotional dexterity and timing) is easily believable in his surprise and grief over his mother’s apparent dis-ownership of her murdering son.

Crowning this character study is a courtroom scene in which the renowned Clarence Darrow (Gary Murphy) attempts to save the lives of two killers already damned by the court of public opinion. A lifelong critic of capital punishment, Darrow struggles with his own conflicted conscience to keep them from swinging from a noose. It is difficult to bring a fresh perspective to a man already depicted on stage and screen by such giants as Orson Welles and Henry Fonda, but the well-cast Murphy successfully avoids a stereotypical depiction and brings to the stage a singular and fresh performance well-rooted in natural gestures and cadences of speech.

My only real criticism of Never the Sinner focuses on the slight mishandling of light cues, especially the final lights-out that lasted a few tortured moments longer than necessary, thereby robbing the audience of the instant satisfaction of praising a hard-working cast and crew that was so deserving of it. I have little doubt that Mr. Rashid, alienist bag securely in hand, will render a swift diagnosis and treatment to correct the problem.

This production at Chemically Imbalanced Theater tackles additional questions in a case that already puzzles and astounds. Why an undercurrent of relief under such intense public anger that the killers were Jews? Who would send Richard Loeb, albeit a handsome and charismatic young man, love letters in jail as he ponders the gallows? How did the pairing of these two men, well-matched in intellect but a dichotomy in character, create the perfect recipe for crime and murder?

Nathan Leopold, tragically smart, awkward and friendless, seamlessly melds with Richard Loeb, a handsome and charismatic fellow classmate. They are upper-class peers but social antitheses. Though it comes off as hyperbole, they build a case for their own superiority using Neitzchien philosophy and together hatch a plan to demonstrate it to the world with terrible consequences.

Further puzzling, I was especially amazed by the cozy and almost friendly relationships that develops between the two young murderers and the reporters who gain exclusive interviews, a seemingly far-fetched assertion that was nevertheless verified by For the Thrill of It by Simon Baatz (2008), a first-rate look at the sensationalist crime. The Roaring Twenties were known for spawning the class warfare, racism and sense of entitlement that could produce two young men capable of taking a boy’s life with no more consideration than one gives an insect. Though it seems to defy conventional wisdom, it appears that the men and women who interacted with the accused were incapable of treating Leopold and Loeb, confessed killers both, with anything but the deference and respect afforded to the privileged and well-connected.

The ultimate question, the one that still burns in the heart of Kenwood where the Franks mansion still stands; the one that lingers like incense over a plot of soil in which the body of a promising young boy rests in Rosehill Cemetery; the one that searches for the ashes of Richard Loeb in their unmarked internment in Oak Woods Cemetery…this question remains unanswered. For no one but Leopold and Loeb can tell you why they lacked that basic ingredient - that missing piece that separates men from unreasoning animals - that quite possibly would have made them great men. Only the killers of Bobby Franks could answer that question.

Or could they?

Interested Readers,

You may find the multimedia clip referenced by McCabe (Project 891's "Never the Sinner" promotional trailer), here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpJuGG0wGwE

and here:
http://vimeo.com/5196334

For god's sake, somebody give Christopher McCabe a job as a critic! That comment was one of the best reviews I've ever read.

Just wondering if Christopher McCabe is in any way related to Terry McCabe, who directed the 1985 premiere of NEVER THE SINNER.

Nope. I'm not from the area. I think there is a clan of McCabes up here, given the frequency that I'm asked. I'm pretty sure my last name is in the script as well. Coincidences abound!