Arts Threshold, The Lizzie Play, Fringe Club Theatre, January 14-19.
DID Lizzie Borden make mincemeat out of her father and stepmother that murderously hot day in August 1892 or was the foul deed perpetrated by person or persons unknown? How fortunate for American lore that forensic science was then in its swaddling clothes. And how grateful we should be that author Angela Carter and more recently, playwright Deirdre Strath, have been able to hack through to the real conundrum: not who, but why? Strath takes an intriguing short story and turns it into a Gothic roller-coaster whose destination is as inevitable as it is gruesome.
There is no escaping it in that suffocating house at Fall River, Massachusetts. Andrew Borden, sweating in his thick dark suit, is rank with corruption. Abigail, his grotesquely fat wife, is stuffed with meanness and suspicion. Bridget, the Irish cook, is plainly at the end of her tether. And then there are the spinster sisters, Emma and Lizzie, the one quivering with barely-suppressed hysteria, the other . . . uh-oh.
How blessed are we latter 20th-century sophisticates with our insights to the subconscious. Strath, knowing full well that just about everyone out there is an amateur shrink, takes rich advantage of her audience, dropping clue after clue like so many bloody footprints.
It's a brilliant psychological portrait of a victim-turned-avenger and Nicola Blackwell, all seething volcanic rage and suppressed sexuality beneath that icy exterior, is riveting as the tormented Lizzie.
There is not a lost opportunity in this gripping, intensely physical play, as Gary Oliver (Andrew), Sarah Ball (Abigail), Tania-Jayne Bowers (Emma), Julie Hesmondhalgh (Bridget), Wendy Turner (Alice Russell) and Jon Benoit (J. Vinnicum Morse) join Blackwell in a near-faultless display of ensemble acting.