Review of Loft Theatre Company production of Never the Sinner (2009)

Privilege and perversity are the curious bedfellows that earmark the personalities of infamous young murderers Leopold and Loeb.

Playwrights, film-makers and authors have constantly probed the motives and intellects of the American duo who in 1920s Chicago carried out what inevitably became known as the crime of the century. This play by John Logan fairly heaves with contrasts that could defy the stoutest efforts of a theatre company.

Not so, this Loft production. It fearlessly grasps the nettle of an extraordinary study of human frailty and a relationship based on loneliness and isolation. On one hand, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb are seen as the ruthless Nietzsche supermen of their own imagining. Alternatively, they are sad, emotionally deprived victims of materialistic society, clinging to each other for security.

Tim Willis directs with a strongly focused vision of the two young men’s torment and is superbly served by the performances of Oli Jones and Chris Smith, the one bookish and withdrawn, the other loud and flamboyant. How the balance of power between them subtly shifts is the mainstay of the drama and it is brilliantly revealed by actors and director.

The intensity is heightened by atmospheric lighting design which embraces lonely country spot or harsh courtroom with equal skill. And in the battle of attorneys, there is sharply effective contrast between Harry Sanders as the deceptively gentle legal giant Clarence Darrow and Roy Donoghue delivering the prosecution’s powerful and impassioned plea for justice.

The only weakness of the production is its failure to underscore the media circus which accompanies the trial. The headline calls of the reporters are half-hearted and irritating where they should achieve an almost Greek chorus magnitude and thus further empower the drama.

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Peter McGarry is an experienced, independent professional theatre critic who has agreed to review Loft Theatre Company productions.

The agreement with the Loft is that Peter is free to express his opinions for good or ill. The Loft Theatre Company has no control whatsoever over the content of these reviews and will never comment publicly on what he writes.