Thrill Me

In all fairness, I’m not sure there’s a correct way to write a musical about infamous wealthy Chicago murderers Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. But since it’s difficult to think of even one good musical about killers that doesn’t have a wicked sense of humor (Little Shop of Horrors, Sweeney Todd), and since there’s little to satirize in this historical case (the media firestorm didn’t save the two men from prison, à la Roxie Hart in Chicago, and their savvy attorney Clarence Darrow didn’t go on to become a blustery cartoon character like Fiorello! LaGuardia), it’s hard to prove that it should be a musical at all. Rendering the story as a two-person chamber musical, Dolginoff is mostly concerned with the couple’s domestic squabbles (sweet Leopold was so stuck on hard-to-get pretty-boy Loeb he committed murder to impress him). Yet considering how intimate and personal Thrill Me tries to be, it’s still pretty generic (and a tiny production budget exacerbates problems rather than forcing creative solutions).

Dolginoff the composer can write a melody line, which puts him ahead of the pack, but his tunes don’t quite stick, and the lyrics are often negligible. Meanwhile, his book tells the story in flashback—as Leopold testifies to his parole board decades after Loeb was killed in a prison shower—a device that does little to titillate. Gryder is earnest and capable as Leopold, while newcomer Martin, though talented, pushes Loeb’s aloof sex appeal too hard, killing the buzz.—Christopher Piatt