"Killer Joe": The Trailer Park in Soho
Playwright Tracy Letts balks at the suggestion that his play "Killer Joe" evokes shades of Quentin Tarantino's film "Pulp Fiction," There is no connection, he insists, short of the vagaries of unlucky timing. "Pulp Fiction" was released in 1994, but "I was writing this play in 1991. At the time, Quentin Tarantino was working in a video store."
If "Killer Joe" echoes the influence of any artist, Letts says it's Faulkner. On some level, Tennessee Williams shapes the play's sensibility, he continues, and so does Jim Thompson whose work is marked by grittiness that's both savage and funny, among the violently inclined in small-town Southwest USA. Thompson's best known novel is "The Grifters."
"Killer Joe," which opened Oct. 18, at Off-Broadway's Soho Playhouse, tells the volatile story of an over-the-top-dysfunctional trailer-park white-trash family that decides to kill Mama for her life-insurance policy. Short-fused, incestuous, and probably brain damaged‹a description that has application, in varying degrees, to everyone here‹the Smith family hires a hit man who falls in love with the daughter. In her dim-witted way she returns the sentiment. "Killer Joe" is a hybrid, combining elements of romance, melodrama, graphic sex-gore, and comedy. Yes, there are laughs here. It's Dogpatch meets Sam Peckinpah.
"I hope "Killer Joe' doesn't fit too easily into any genre. In the most traditional respects, it's part thriller and part family drama," says the 33-year-old Tulsa, Okla., native with whom we speak over the phone. He is now based in Los Angeles. "My family bears no resemblance to these people, but I've known people like this and I have tremendous sympathy for them. They've had little opportunity and sustenance‹emotionally, spiritually, not to mention economically. Where is the morality supposed to come from?"
He adds, "I find families with real struggles far more interesting than struggles experienced by families who are rich and famous. There's more dramatic possibility with the Smiths and they elicit a gut sympathy that I don't feel for those who haven't battled to survive."
Letts, who has spent the bulk of his professional life as an actor, notes that "Killer Joe" marks his playwriting debut. First produced in Chicago in 1993 and then mounted in New York at the 29th Street Rep in 1995, the work has been performed in 10 countries in more than a dozen languages. The play has garnered rave reviews internationally. Letts has written a second piece, "Bug," that premiered at The Gate Theatre in London, in 1996. This play centers on an encounter between a delusional housewife and a Gulf War veteran, both awash in paranoia. " "Bug' is quieter and less in your face than "Killer Joe,' " says Letts.
There were challenges in writing "Killer Joe," Letts admits, including the fear of appealing to stereotypes about poor southern whites. "Some clich s are apt; many of these people are not too bright. But it was never my intention to hold these characters up to ridicule. I hope I'm showing that, even at their worst, they're doing the best they can. My biggest concern was that audiences would distance themselves from these characters. And that's a consideration when you're talking about theatregoers who are paying $45 a ticket. I hope the play asks questions as opposed to nailing down answers. I like ambiguity and I hope audiences leave arguing."
Letts is amiable and good-humored, yet he has a cultural axe to grind: "Killer Joe" was born in response to "theatre that had become a platform for preaching or philosophizing and a substitute for drama. [He refuses to cite which plays he has in mind.] I wrote "Killer Joe' out of a sense of frustration as a theatregoer." Interestingly, he and "Killer Joe" director Wilson Milam have founded a company, "Hired Gun," that's committed to a common goal: "To tell a good story and move people in a visceral way.
"We're not concerned with the director's viewpoint or good acting just for the sake of good acting. The actors make it happen, of course, but they're not more important than the writer or director. It's an ensemble effort and it's all about process. I've seen Wilson give notes closing night."
Leaving Durant
Letts grew up in Durant, Okla.‹"a small town 100 miles north of Dallas"‹the son of schoolteachers, both of whom are retired and have launched second careers. Letts' father, Dennis, is now a working character actor and has appeared in more than 40 films; and his mother, Billie, is a published novelist. From the outset, Letts' ambition was "to escape Durant," he chortles, "And perform."
Following high school, Letts pursued a career as a professional actor in Dallas, and then in Chicago. "Working in Chicago theatre is the best possible training," he says. "Because they're able to mount plays for $500, there are a lot more opportunities for young actors."
During one of his dryer periods Letts wrote "Killer Joe," employing the actors he knew for workshop readings. He stresses that he still largely thinks of himself as an actor. "It's my first love. I like the camaraderie of acting, and its public side. On the other hand, I appreciate the private side of writing." Acting informs all his writing, he stresses. "When I wrote "Killer Joe' my goal was to create five characters that actors would enjoy playing."
Indeed, he observes that during the play's various incarnations, revisions were inspired by the actors playing the parts. "I give them lots of leeway. I'm open to actors' suggestions and I like it when they improvise, even in performance. My writing is not etched in stone, although some sections are more carefully written than others. The actors respect that."
Letts says he's surprised at "the universality of response" to his play, regardless of where‹or, more curious, in what language‹it has been produced. Equally striking is how broad-based, demographically speaking, his audiences have been.
Still, the New York producers were afraid that graying audiences wouldn't like this play, recalls Letts. "The fact is, elderly theatregoers are especially responsive to good old-fashioned storytelling. And after a certain age, people aren't shocked by anything. At our first preview in Chicago, a 90-year-old woman wearing a shawl showed up. We don't know where she came from, but she laughed her head off. She was moved, scared. A retirement home in Chicago requested 80 tickets."
On the graphic sex and violence in this work, Letts remarks off-handedly, "Yes, audiences are often sickened by it, but to my knowledge, only one woman‹and that was in New York‹actually got up and walked out of the theatre. It's true, I've been accused of misogyny. One person thought it might be better‹more politically correct‹if some of the men and women reversed their roles. But then women would be the victimizers." He wonders if that choice would be viewed as politically correct.
Letts says the play speaks to audiences in idiosyncratic ways. But perhaps the most memorable response came from the mother of an actor in one of the earlier productions. The young actor was convinced she'd be horrified by the work. Instead, she walked away from the play with this observation: " "Any time you're dealing with insurance policies, you've got to be careful.' "
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