Top: Darrell W. Cox (from left) Howie Johnson, Claire Wellin, Somer Benson and Kevin Bigley. Middle: Johnson, Bigley and Cox. Bottom: Cox, Johnson and Bigley.
At the intersection of turn-your-blood-icy fear and profane hilarity sits Killer Joe, a ripped sociopath who radiates the threat of merciless violence like rabid wolf about to gut a lame baby bunny. “His eyes hurt,” says Dottie, the damaged, spooky child who falls prey to Joe’s predatory sexuality. And damned if they don’t, even glimpsed from the back of Profiles Theatre Company.
In the titular role of Killer Joe, Tracy Letts’ pre-August: Osage venture into southern discomfort, Darrell W. Cox does in fact display eyes that hurt, as well as a voice that’ll put unease in your heart. Director Rick Snyder’s ensemble is seamless, fearless and unforgettable but make no mistake – this is Cox’s show, and he carries it in a role he seems born to play. Killer Joe is a monster in the guise of a juiced-up granite block of a human, a down-home Keyser Soze welcomed into the lives of Texas trailer trash fools too desperate and too stupid to understand that they’ve invited evil with a hefty side of sadism to share their K. Fry C. supper. 
The audience understands this the second Joe shows up chez Smith, a home defined by the casual filth of people too poor and too perpetually drunk/stoned/tweaked to care about a domicile (seedy perfection by set –designer William Anderson) furnished with brimming ash trays and empty beer bottles. Dottie is the daughter of the house, a 20-year-old with the mind of a 12-year-old and an eerie ability to intuit the darkest family secrets. She knows immediately that Joe is there to kill her mama – the same mama that tried to kill her when she was a baby. Mama held a pillow over her face, explains Dottie in a flat-affect tone that grows increasingly disturbing as the drama winds on.
“How do you know your mama tried to kill you?” Joe asks, piqued.
“I remember,” says Dodie in a response that’ll send chills down your spine. The moment is only the beginning of a story defined by such authentic creepiness. And by the kind of violence that once witnessed, can bother you for life no matter how many times you reassure yourself that after all, Killer Joe is only a play.
As for Dottie – played to hollow-eyed perfection by Claire Wellin - she may just be as scary as Joe. Listen for her innocent, whispery monotone caveat when making plans to escape with her pot-smoking brother Chris . She’ll go, Dottie says, and then almost as a throwaway aside – “unless someone makes me angry.” It’s part Carrie, part Bad Seed and a wholly terrifying bit of foreshadowing.
The virginal Dottie is hardly the only troubled member of the Smith family. Her brother Chris (Kevin Bigley, genuinely touching devotion to his sister shining through the twitchy despair of the damned) owes $6,000 to one Digger Soames, a drug dealer known to bury his debtors alive. Chris’ and Dottie’s father Ansel (Howie Johnson, personifying that unfortunate combination of stupidity and malleability that invariably gets people into deep, deep trouble) and his second wife Charla (Somer Benson, a garish delight as a faithless, mannerless, fashion-challenged fellatio aficionado whose forced finesse with a chicken leg provides the piece’s apex of compulsively watchable depravity) make Al and Peggy Bundy look like characters out of a Jane Austen novel. 
Letts’ plot is a freight train without a loose connection, each scene building on the next with precision and momentum that increases in intensity until the inevitable, spectacularly explosive climactic wreck. And for all the raunch and rawness and violence, Killer Joe is inarguably funny. It’s the humor of the blood-drenched, innocence-murdered gallows to be sure, but it’ll make you laugh out loud.
There’s a good reason Profiles has deemed Killer Joe “NC17” and papered the lobby with warnings about gun shots/profanity/drug use/full-frontal nudity of both the male and female variety. If you haven’t a strong stomach for such things – and the worst that human beings can do to one another, stay away. Yet that would be a shame, because in Killer Joe, Snyder has shaped a thrilling piece of theater.
Killer Joe continues through Feb. 28 at Profiles Theatre, 4147 N. Broadway. For more information, click here or go to http://www.profilestheatre.org/
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