★★★★
Following on from their previous success with The Brief Life & Mysterious Death of Boris III, King of Bulgaria, Out of the Forest Theatre are back with Bury The Hatchet, a true crime retelling of the Lizzie Borden case. In 1892, Borden was accused and acquitted of murdering her father and stepmother with a hatchet. No one else has ever been charged with the crime, and it remains one of the biggest unsolved murder mysteries in America.
Writer Sasha Wilson plays Lizzie and is joined by Laurence Boothman and Daniel Leopold, who multirole as Lizzie’s family, members of the judiciary system and other key eyewitnesses. Together, they blend dark humour, satirical storytelling, and bluegrass murder ballads to take us through how events might have happened, breaking out of character every so often to address common misconceptions about the case.
The trio have brilliant chemistry together, and it’s impressive how many props they use to portray the different roles. Wilson is brilliant in the role of Borden, slipping between being enigmatic, fragile and cunning at different parts of the story. I struggled to fully appreciate Leopold’s acting due to the staging (I was at the opposite side to him and couldn’t see well), but his musical contributions are excellent. Boothman steals the show with his facial expressions and over-the-top acting. The choice to use him as the “questioner”, who often breaks away from the scene to ask Wilson about a discrepancy is an effective one: the thought of a Glaswegian narrating this story in the small American town adds an extra touch of humour.
It’s not a perfectly polished performance and there were moments where props were missing, or the actors went the wrong way. However, this doesn’t take away from the show at all, and adds to the charm and quirkiness of the production. It’s very cleverly written and truly a joy to watch. Out of The Forest Theatre are definitely on my “must watch” list and I’m excited to see what they come up with next.
The evidence is pretty damming, and it’s surprising that Borden was not found guilty. But Wilson frames this in a larger question about truth and true crime. We will never know what happened; is that why we’re so fascinated by true crime? Perhaps it is time to accept this, and finally bury the hatchet for good.
Bury The Hatchet will be performed at Pleasance Dome – Queen Dome until 25 August (not 12) as part of Edinburgh Fringe.
Words by Ellen Leslie
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