Lizzie The Musical ⭐︎  ⭐︎  ⭐︎  ⭐︎

Southwark Playhouse, Elephant, 

Nope, not a musical about the late Queen Elizabeth II. We are confident that there will be one but it’s still #toosoon. You might want to try The Crown on Netflix meanwhile.

This thumping Lizzie musical is about the infamous Lizzie Borden of the US nursery rhyme ‘Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one’. Composed by Steven Cheslick-deMeyer, TIm Maner and Alan Stevens Hewitt it’s a raucous dive into the true crime story with a hard rock exploration of the psychological origin and context of this horrific tale. Based on a real-life double murder it’s got plenty of Halloween potential but its main aim is to frame who should be considered the real victim of the case.

Lizzie (Lauren Drew) lives in her father’s home with his second wife. Her mother had died when she was a child. It’s a house of secrets and locked doors. Her father is sexually abusing her while her stepmom is seeking to cut Lizzie and her sister Emma (Shekinah McFarlane) from her father’s will. This would leave Lizzie and Emma destitute. Lizzie is growing increasingly traumatised and her only solace is to admire the freedom of the birds in the pigeon loft and find moments of tenderness in the arms of her neighbour Alice (Emma Louise Hoey). Lizzie seems to see suggestions to kill her stepmom from everything around her, whether it’s a book on poisons discarded by her sister or moments of opportunity highlighted by the maid Bridget (Mairi Barclay). Her father spies that Lizzie is meeting with Alice in the pigeon loft and cruelly beheads all of her beloved birds. Lizzie finally breaks and takes an axe to both her stepmom and her father. As their corpses ferment in the heat of Massachusetts she is arrested and tried for their killing. 

It’s all challenging fodder for a musical. On a claustrophobically tight set Director and Choreographer William Whelton faces some tough choices. How to deal with triggering content of sexual abuse and murder without burying his audience in misery and still delivering the highs and lows expected of musical theatre. It largely succeeds and is done by maintaining appropriately tight lanes by scene and character. The abuse is unvarnished and the audience is given the chance to be horrified in an explicit solo. But it’s kept largely separate from the interactions with the other characters. Lizzie is scheming with her sister, vulnerable with her lover and manically disturbed around the maid. The separation allows different tones to be used as necessary to be appropriately respectful and still entertaining. Bridget the maid is the main vehicle in creating some needed levity to cocoon the moments of mania. And mania there is, when the axe finally flies there are Chucky doll levels of gore sprayed on the backdrops. 

It’s set to a hard rock score, occasionally veering into punk, that highlights the contrast between the historical setting and its assumed gender roles versus the rebellious agency of the all-female cast. It works, though, on a tight set, it limits the way the choreography can mirror the spirit of the music. A blisteringly rousing set of voices from the performers keeps up the octane even when there is no room for them to swing from the rafters.

 

 

 

Queerguru Contributing Editor ANDREW HEBDEN is a MEDIA and cultural STUDIES graduate spending his career between London, Beijing, and NYC as an expert in media and social trends. As part of the expanding minimalist FIRE movement, he recently returned to the UK and lives in Soho. He devotes as much time as possible to the movies, theatre, and the gym. His favorite thing is to try something (anything) new every day”