Tracy Letts’ 1993 Debut: A Violent Dark Comedy of Hitmen, Drugs, and Chaos– Coen Brothers Meets Sam Shepard in a Texas Trailer Park
By Eric Marchese
Most of us know “August: Osage County,” but do many theatre enthusiasts know the same playwright’s debut work, “Killer Joe”?
Orange County theatregoers should have at least a passing familiarity with Letts and his work. His “Man from Nebraska” has been staged at SCR, and Hunger Artists did an admirable job with his surreal 1996 script “Bug.”
Now, they’ll have a rare opportunity to see the first Letts play, a work that dates back more than 30 years.
Costa Mesa Playhouse is bringing us a four-week run in what is possibly the play’s Orange County premiere.
Part ‘deep-fried pulp thriller,’ part dark comedy
Director Chris Mertan calls the play “both a deep-fried pulp thriller and a pitch-black dark comedy – think those sorts of murder-for-hire crime stories by Jim Thompson or the noirs the Coen Brothers used to make.”
The Smiths “are an almost farcical trailer-trash family who hire Joe to do a hit so they can score some insurance money. Of course, it all goes to hell – violence, betrayal, all the fun Faustian bargains.”
The show, Mertan says, “has been a labor of love I’ve been working toward for almost 20 years, when I first saw it. Immediately, I was struck by what I can only describe as its poetic vulgarity.”
Michael Serna, CMP’s board vice president and the show’s producer, hasn’t seen the show live. “There was a good movie a few years ago with a stellar cast” – the 2012 film version directed by William Friedkin, a close friend and associate of Letts known for “The French Connection” and “The Exorcist.”
“Really, though,” Serna said, “this was a show Chris Mertan brought to my attention. I knew of it, but read it based on his recommendation.”
Exploring what has become of the American home
Mertan said the play’s characters “are desperate people who are incapable of understanding their own helplessness, so they’re surrounding themselves with alcohol, weed, endless TV, fast food. It was one of those plays for me that unlocked the whole art form, so ironically, as cynical and hardboiled as it can get sometimes, it’s a deeply personal show to me.”
“The challenge, of course, is to build out the emotional core of the characters within such a farcical world. But that’s also what makes it so fun with this cast.”
Mertan continued: “I always think of this play as a sort of bridge between the bleak Americana of Sam Shepard and the later pop crassness of Martin McDonagh.”
He explained that thematically, Letts “is tackling what has become of the American home at the end of the 20th century, what has become of the American culture. Since the theme of this season at CMP is ‘True Colors,’ it only makes sense to revisit a play about the American underbelly as it approached Y2K. Really, we’re still living with its consequences.”
Serna has “been a fan of Tracy Letts for years and loves his take on the raw sides of the modern American ethos,” so he was “shocked, thrilled, and couldn’t wait to figure out how (the play) wraps up. Plus, Letts shows how he could be the heir to Sam Shepard’s legacy.”
Serna said he and the CMP brain trust “had been wanting to do a Letts play for a while but were looking for the right spot and right time. We also wanted to avoid some of his more popular works, such as ‘August: Osage County,’ and dig into something a bit different that audiences might not have seen.”
The direct line from ‘Killer Joe’ to later Letts works
Serna points out that “this is Letts’ first play, and I think he brings a raw recklessness to his writing that is compelling, intense, and visceral. I really think it's a challenge to produce and a crazy ride for an audience. There’s a good bet that if you don’t know this play, you'll be surprised by it.”
Mertan notes that “already we can see Letts crafting the themes he’ll continue to explore.”
The director delves into this, saying audiences “see the exploration of family, later, of course, in ‘August: Osage County.’ He’d keep dissecting ‘America’ in ‘Bug,’ and ‘The Minutes,’ and we also see an undercurrent of liberation, or rather the dream of being spiritually liberated, like he’d revisit in ‘Mary Page Marlowe’ and ‘Linda Vista,’ – but this is his first- and probably his most fun.”
Serna similarly traces the threads linking the playwright’s earliest work to his later successes: “Tracy Letts doesn’t write ‘August: Osage County’ if he doesn’t first attack ‘Killer Joe.’ Life in rural Texas plays a big role in the show, and Letts exposes the most dangerous and self-serving aspects of the American Dream.”
Costa Mesa Playhouse and its leadership, Serna notes, “like to have a spot in our season that is really a big risk, something that brings our audience something they can't see anywhere else. This is one of our best modern playwrights and actors delivering raw theatre. Oh, it also features very adult themes – not one for the kids.”
CMP’s cast handles ‘a one-legged tightrope walk’
Mertan calls his cast “dynamite – and they have to be, because the script requires them to be game for some rather harrowing stuff. This show is a one-legged tightrope walk, keeping the characters grounded and funny while also juggling all the surprises Letts throws at you. From day one,” his five cast members “have been taking huge leaps.”
Peter Hilton is cast as Ansel Smith, Caitlin Zinn as Sharla Smith, Justin Callisch as Chris Smith, Kathryn Ludlam as Dottie Smith, and Mark Tillman has the role of Sheriff Joe Cooper.
Alongside director Mertan are Serna as the production’s set designer, Sofia Duran-Kneip as lighting designer, Daniel Mertan creating the sound scheme, Anna Rajala as intimacy choreographer, David Rodriguez handling fight coordination, and Loren Morris as stage manager.
Mertan praises “Killer Joe” for having “a comic momentum that’s piercing through what would otherwise be very heady stuff” and concludes that CMP’s production “is going to be a taut, wild rollercoaster.”
“I’ve still never experienced a play that goes quite to the extremes that ‘Killer Joe’ is willing to. You’re going to feel thrust into the trailer, down and dirty with the Smith family.”
Eric Marchese has written about numerous subjects for more than 39 years as a freelance and staff journalist at a wide variety of publications, but is best known as a critic, feature writer, and news reporter covering theatre and the arts throughout Orange County and beyond.
‘Killer Joe’
Costa Mesa Playhouse, 661 Hamilton Drive, Costa Mesa
November 1 - 22, 2024
(949) 650-5269, costamesaplayhouse.org
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