The talented Weston Blakesley as Darrow movingly recreates the lawyer's summation to the jury, pleading for mercy because of the boys' ages (eighteen and nineteen). Nick Niven, bearing a striking resemblance to Dickie, succeeds at the very hard job of keeping his manic, seductive energy going throughout the play. We understand how Babe could have succumbed to his charms.
Aaron Himmelstein, who has a barrel full of impressive credits, plays the sexually suppressed and needy but brilliant Babe. I was particularly taken with his performance, and found myself sympathetic to his fatal attraction to Dickie. I believe one of the reasons Henning wrote this play was to set the record straight. The story has long been sensationalized to exploit the boys' Jewishness and homosexual relationship. The truth is, the crime had nothing to do with either. These were lonely, extremely intelligent boys who formed a fatal friendship. Though homosexuality played a part (at least for Babe, and manipulated by Dickie), what actually occurred, whispered in the court so as not to offend, was little more than bodily rubbing, which is part of the experimentation that young people do. The way Henning has captured their relationship is very believable, and totally and tragically understandable. I was fully immersed in the play and the performances - another success for The Blank Theatre Company. Through March 30.
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