Rebecca Gilman's "Crime of the Century"
From the Chicago Tribune NOV-99
 

Theater review, 'The Crime of the Century'

By Chris Jones

When the late Richard Speck entered a townhouse at 2319 E. 100th St. and murdered eight women on the night of July 14, 1966, he ensured that his name would live on in infamy. Because this city was paralyzed by anger and fear while he was at large, Speck and his brutal killings remain very much alive in Chicago's collective consciousness.

But the major point behind Rebecca Gilman's "The Crime of the Century," which enjoyed a deftly staged world premiere on Wednesday night at the tiny but bold Circle Theatre in Forest Park, is that while mass murderers' names invariably echo down the years, the victims whose lives they snuff out are much more quickly forgotten.

Gilman's three-hour docudrama is too long and attempts too much. But it is nonetheless a compelling and honest tribute to the brief lives of the eight achingly young nursing students--five Americans and three Filipinos--who were killed that horrific night on Chicago's Southeast Side. And for anyone interested in local crime history, this graphic and highly intelligent exploration will serve as a jolting but illuminating journey through one dark episode in Chicago's past that at least has a legacy of honorable police work, honest lawyers and a fair trial.

By any standards, this is a intensely moving show.

Demonstrating her singular skill at dramatic construction and resolute determination to avoid cheap sensation, Gilman does not re-create Speck's crime. Rather, she interweaves the drama of the investigation with biographical sketches of each of the women he killed. Our guide through all this horror and pain is Corazon Amurao (played by Seema Sueko). A major witness for the prosecution, Amurao was the only survivor.

Director Greg Kolack and the actresses who play the slain nurses have meticulously re-created the women's appearances from photos that are projected at the rear of the stage. Although varied in style, all of the performances are excellent. So even though the nurses talk to the audience about such typical preoccupations as boyfriends, engagements and family members, the lost potential of their lives hits you like an oncoming train.

Gilman and Kolack had the compelling idea of using each of the nurses, in turn, as the narrative voice. Since every event in the investigation takes place under the watchful eye of one of the nurses, the play makes a very powerful statement about accountability to victims. It also offers the chance for honest actors like Whit Spurgeon, Eric Fraisher Hayes and Gene Cordon to impress with top-quality character work.

Gilman based her play on the book of the same name by writer Dennis L. Breo and prosecuting attorney William J. Martin (superbly played here by the wonderfully understated Larry Dahlke). "The Crime of the Century" runs to several hundred pages and is not easily contained in a single evening of drama.

Although the play deftly characterizes the earnest efforts of the police, the crime drama component could use some editing. And if Gilman wants this play to have a life beyond Chicago, she should probably beef up the drama's inherent ahistoricism--and the clever connections it makes between institutional societal violence and the murders of one man.

But by the end of the night, it's the nurses we remember. And since Pamela Wilkening, Nina Jo Schmale, Patricia Matusek, Suzanne Bridgett Farris, Valentina Pasion, Gloria Davy, Mary Ann Jordan and Merlita Gargullo had so few chances to speak for themselves, that's the way it should be.

Through Dec. 12 at Circle Theatre, 7300 W. Madison St., Forest Park. Call 708-771-0300.

Jones is a Chicago freelance writer.