REVIEW: Thrill Me: The Leopold & Loeb Story – C Venues, Edinburgh
The now infamous case of the 1924 ‘thrill killers’ Leopold and Loeb is a well-mined source of theatrical material, from Patrick Hamilton’s 1929 play Rope, in turn transformed into Alfred Hitchcock’s 1948 film of the same name, to this, Stephen Dolginoff’s 2005 musical Thrill Me.
Told as a series of flashbacks, this atmospheric two-hander begins at Leopold’s fifth parole hearing in 1958. Previously tight-lipped, but now desirous of release, Nathan ‘Babe’ Leopold finally decides to divulge the full story of the murder of 14 year old Bobby Franks, committed simply ‘because they could’. The claustrophobic relationship between the pair is explored to great effect in this well-constructed script and the lengths to which Leopold will go in order to satisfy the Nietzsche-worshipping Loeb’s depraved craving for thrills are tightly written.
Read the rest of this review, written for Broadway Baby here.