ABET | Atlantic Beach Experimental Theatre

 
ABET News
posted by Guest Artist
Wednesday, September 30, 2009

34 YEARS

by Richard Wolf, playwright of AFTER THE MURDERS

The case of Lizzie Borden had always fascinated me. Many years before this play, I’d read a book about the ax murders of her father and step-mother and had also seen the made-for-television movie.

lizzie2How could a person commit such a grisly crime, much less a woman? What sort of inner rage sparked such a release? Then, in the midst of my new readings, a strange thing happened. I ran across the most intriguing fact of all from my point of view – after her acquittal she lived thirty-four more years staying right in her home town, and the scene of the crime, Fall River,  Massachusetts.

At the time of my readings this fact was almost treated as a short, relatively minor postscript to the murders and her acquittal. Although I could understand the salacious appetite for most of those who would read about her was first and foremost  the run-up to and the ghastly murders themselves, for me I had to know about her life after.

So began the research, as many books as I could find that would at least have partial sections of them  about the years that followed for her. The internet also proved an invaluable research tool. What I found was that I had wandered into a Pandora’s Box of utterly fascinating material filled with art theft, lesbianism, a home in the best section of Fall River, unforgiving townspeople, newspapers never letting go of the story – ever, sibling conflict, steel-edged defiance and most of all, the unforgettable and bizarre character of Lizzie herself.

I had to write a play about all of this, about her, about AFTER THE MURDERS.