Reviews

The Screams of Kitty Genovese

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30 August 2010

Spotlites @ The Merchants’ Hall
4-29 August, various times

Exploring the story of Kitty Genovese, a woman repeatedly attacked over a 35 minute period just feet from the front door of her New York apartment whilst 38 of her neighbours reportedly admitted to hearing her screams but not doing anything about them, this is certainly the kind of grand, emotional topic so well suited to contemporary opera.

What emerges is a darkly hypnotic rock opera, presented on nothing more than a collection black chairs. Unfortunately the minimal set feels like it constricts the production, and the 30 minutes spent establishing the mundane lives the ensemble of neighbours lead drags slightly in places.

The performances of Sophie Tehrani as Kitty Genovese and Darren Charles as her assailant, Winston Moseley, are impressive throughout. The support of the ensemble is vocally faultless. The main thing which lets the performance down is the direction, with the stylised nature of Kitty’s death jarring with her reappearance for the finale, in what looked like a poor Halloween costume.

It was great to see a piece as challenging and dark as The Screams of Kitty Genovese being performed at the Fringe by this strong a cast. The constant questioning of whether the attack the neighbours were overlooking was indicative of greater moral corruption in New York or the rest of America juxtaposing the feeble list of excuses they were making to themselves was particularly poignant.