Lizzie the Musical is a rock-infused retelling of the infamous Lizzie Borden case, in which Lizzie is accused of brutally murdering her father and stepmother in 1892. The show explores the events leading up to the murders, focusing on Lizzie's strained family life, her oppressive circumstances and her rebellious spirit. With a cast of four women and a powerful score, the musical delves into themes of repression, rage, and liberation, building toward Lizzie's dark and violent act.
You may be asking the same questions I did when first sitting down for Iowa City Community Theatre's current production: why Lizzie Borden? Why a rock opera? Why now? I'd never heard of this musical before the local advertisements started to circulate, and knew even less about Lizzie Borden beyond the nursery rhyme that bears her name:
Lizzie Borden took an axe / She gave her mother 40 whacks / When she saw what she had done / She gave her father 41
Now having the seen the production at the James Theater this past Friday, I'd argue telling Borden's story (or, at least, the dark American fable in which she stars) through a rock opera allows the storytellers to channel the raw intensity, rebellion and emotional turmoil of her infamous crime through a genre known for its high-octane melodrama.
The aggressive and unrestrained nature of director Ethan B. Glenn's rendition of the show captures so skillfully Lizzie's pent-up rage and desire for liberation from her repressive world. For Iowa City Community Theatre to stage such a work in 2024 speaks to the ongoing cultural conversations around women's autonomy, rage and societal pressures. In a year when gender politics and issues of control over women's bodies continue to dominate headlines, Lizzie becomes not just a piece of historical retelling but also a bold, loud statement about reclaiming agency in a world that often seeks to suppress it.
The show opens with the six-piece band, tucked neatly within the set, playing "Forty Whacks" as the four characters float hauntingly from the wings to centerstage. Anna Marine, who served as both music director and pianist for the production, has brought together a group of musicians audiences will be just as excited to watch as the actors on stage -- particularly, drummer Steve Junge, whose performance maintained such high energy throughout the piece you'd swear he was orchestrating the murders himself.
The music, so effortlessly blending into the story about to unfold, has summoned our characters seemingly from the depths. The stunning voices of Allie Klinsky (Lizzie Borden), Kara Ramirez (Emma Borden), Nicole Elmer (Bridget "Maggie" Sullivan) and Molly Rothman (Alice Russell) pierce the air. Both Ramirez and Elmer possess voices meant for this musical -- each have such a nuanced command of the material, offering expert character subtleties that breathe life into the historical figures and oft-overlooked characters in the drama.
Klinsky aptly captures Lizzie's descent, her restraint chipping away with each song, until she finally commits the murders at the end of Act 1, presented in one of the most striking stage images I've seen in a long while thanks to Glenn's concept, Rich Lemay and Greg Tucker's intuitive set design, and Sam Negin's elaborate lighting.