Jack Holden in KENREX. Photo by Manuel Harlan.Created by Jack Holden, Ed Stambollouian and John Patrick Elliott (who also provides onstage music), the show is based on real life events in the Missouri town of Skidmore. Set in the early 1980s and betraying every kind of stereotype from the ignoble to the terrifying, this is visceral and skilled storytelling akin to a choreographed disembowelling.
On stage Holden races between mic stands, through archways, up and down steps and even perches in a sound booth as he gives voice to each of Skidmore’s inhabitants with the support of pre-recorded voice tapes and interviews. As with his impressive debut production Cruise, Holden physically embodies every one of his characterisations, from the timorous pastor to the naive out-of-town prosecutor David Baird, the ageing shopkeeper Ernest Bowenkamp and his interfering wife, down to the evil Ken Rex McElroy — the man who terrorised an entire community for ten long years, wreaking crime, havoc and intimidation as he cowed his neighbours into fearful submission through his monstrous deeds and deranged behaviour.
The format is slick and assured with scenes brought to life through loquacious dialogue exchanges and the quick utilisation of props on a largely bare stage. In telling a story like this, nearness is everything, so luring the audience into close and often uncomfortable proximity with the funny, quirky, dull and sinister personalities which inhabit the town, pays huge dividends.
Most of the events covered in the play were first publicised in Harry N. MacLean’s meticulously researched bestseller In Broad Daylight in which the author recounted the unscrupulous misdeeds of McElroy’s silver-tongued lawyer Richard McFadin who was thought to have connections with the Kansas City mob, and who used every trick in the book to get cases against his cash-paying client (ranging from theft and rape, to shooting a 70-year old grocer), dismissed and thrown out of court.
In an age where such men are once again emboldened to brazenly commit criminal acts with contempt for the consequences (never mind constitutions or established legalities), this play serves as a timely reminder that our freedoms are under threat and that only unified, collective and organised action to stem the abuses, has any chance of success.
