The citizens of 1920s Chicago dubbed it the "crime of the century": Young millionaires Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were arrested for the murder of a 14-year-old boy, causing tumultuous public uproar. So when the pair pleaded guilty to all charges, negating the need for a trial by jury, it was a shock and a letdown to the crazed public that demanded a role in the killers' punishment.
Now the Woodshed Collective, in its production of John Logan's Never the Sinner, attempts to transform its audience into the jury that never was. Logan presents both the judicial hearing and the crime, born out of the desire of Leopold (Teddy Bergman) and Loeb (Stephen Squibb) for a challenge worthy of their "natural superiority" as self-proclaimed Nietzschean Übermenschen. From the stage plan, which fuses the audience seating with set elements, to the program, fashioned as a Chicago newspaper, director Gabriel Hainer Evansohn makes every effort to draw the audience into the fanatical fervor that surrounded the case.
It's strange, then, that the cast members never approach this vehemence themselves, even when portraying the journalists who infamously stoked the fire of rumor. The emotional detachment that we expect from the duo — Loeb describes eating a hot dog with the same dispassion as the murder itself — seems contagious, despite the pitch of frenzy that other roles demand.
Only in the heated debates between attorneys Clarence Darrow (E.C. Kelly) and Robert Crowe (Derek Manson) over the nature of justice does this fervor emerge. Although a more personal dimension of the murderous pair eventually surfaces, it is difficult to reconcile feelings of sympathy with the portrait of indifferent killers that Bergman and Squibb initially create. Leopold and Loeb elicit compassion only insofar as they contribute to the futures of Darrow and Crowe, the show's emotional heart and therefore its stars.
Presented by Woodshed Collective
at the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center's Flamboyan Theater, 107 Suffolk St., NYC.
July 17-28. Tue-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 and 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.
(212) 868-4444 or www.smarttix.com.