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Actors shine in
By John Berger
confusing ‘Christie’
Special to the Star-BulletinWAYNE Newton told the crowd at the Waikiki Shell on Saturday that when you take a person's time, you've taken a piece of their life. Newton, the epitome of the old-time Las Vegas showroom entertainer, did only one of his four Top 40 hits but otherwise gave his most loyal fans good value for the time invested.
The same cannot be said of the Ernst Lab Theatre production of "Christie In Love," which opened later that night. The show proved be an outright theft of a valuable hour of life.
The program notes indicate that co-directors Rachelle Amparo and Kelly Williams claim to be exploring the tendency of the general public and mass media to be more interested in the lives and crimes of serial killers than in the killers' victims. Amparo and Williams provide no insights at all on any of this.
A sound bite played over and over and over and over before the start of the show informs the audience that John Reginald Halliday Christie was a quiet middle-aged man convicted and executed for the rape and murder of six women in London in the early 1950s. One of the victims was his wife.
Christie in Love: 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday through April 22. Tickets: $6; $5 students, seniors, military, UH faculty and staff; $3 UHM students with valid I.D. Tickets on sale at the door one hour before performance.
Playwright Howard Brenton implies that the others were prostitutes and that Christie connected with some of them by posing as an undercover police officer. Christie would approach a woman, trick her into propositioning him, then agree to "drop the charges" in exchange for sex.
Brenton has a police officer identified only as Constable (Mathias Maas) doing the grunt work, digging up the bodies Christie buried in his yard. Inspector (Ben Lukey) handles the interrogation, first forcing Christie to admit that he is a renter rather than a homeowner.
Constable is already at work digging through a large mound of shredded newspaper when the doors of the theater open. He spends an inordinate amount of time at the task, eventually uncovering Doll (Alma Pasic), one of Christie's victims.
Pasic gives a perfect performance as the mute corpse. She and Maas become a single synchronized entity as he manipulates her like a mannequin to recreate the murder.
Troy M. Apostol (Christie) is also memorable in portraying a twisted intellect who found empowerment and self-worth in killing women and raping their corpses. Apostol seems to physically diminish when confronted by the inspector. He likewise seems to grow when he, Maas and Pasic act out Doll's murder and rape amid the shredded paper.
Anyone who spends an hour of their life sitting through this will find the seating problematic. Amparo and Williams stage the show in the round with many of the seats on risers to one side of the performance stage. The view from there is less than satisfactory. Even those in front will find the characters facing away from them during parts of the show.
One segment is performed with only two flashlights for illumination. It is far longer than it needs to be and does nothing to address the reasons why some people are fascinated by serial killers and are even attracted to them as celebrities.
The program notes pose the question: "Why even stage a play dealing with one man's senseless defilement?" Don't look to this production for the answer.
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