Karla

Karla, Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Steve Earle’s playwriting debut, focuses on the life, death, and afterlife of Karla Faye Tucker, the first woman to be executed in Texas since the Civil War. Although Earle is publicly opposed to the death penalty, the play is not a simplistic diatribe against capital punishment. Unfortunately, neither is it very good.

The action of Karla begins with the convicted murderer’s execution via lethal injection. Played by Jodie Markell, Karla finds herself in the afterlife, but it’s not quite what she expected. She thought that maybe she’d see Jesus — while in prison, she found religion after stealing a Bible following an evangelical puppet show — but her path to redemption involves much more than praying for forgiveness. In the purgatorial space in which Karla finds herself, she encounters figures from her past, including her two murder victims. Before she or any of the others can move on, Karla must be put on trial and the events leading up to her fateful deed must be revealed.

Since much of the play consists of Karla speaking directly to the audience and witnesses giving testimony, there is an overly expository air to the proceedings. We learn about the murder, Karla’s childhood, her experiences as a call girl, her drug addiction, and so on. Even where the playwright has penned dialogue scenes, they too often reveal information rather than flesh out the character relationships.

Director Bruce Kronenberg’s lackluster pacing makes the production rather tedious to sit through, and the actors have varying degrees of success with the material. Markell has a strong presence, yet the character of Karla as written is rather bland in that Earle has chosen to present a changed woman rather than showing us her transformation following the murders. On the plus side, Jeremy Schwartz is riveting as Karla’s boyfriend and accomplice, Danny. With his thick beard and haunted expression, he looks somewhat like Charles Manson, yet his monologue describing his relationship to Karla and his part in the murders is genuinely moving.

Linda Marie Larson as Karla’s mother, Carolyn, indicates the character through poise and manner but her performance lacks depth. Jenny Maguire is affecting as murder victim Deborah, though her more emotional scenes come across as forced. E. Jason Liebrecht offers an angry, one-note characterization of the other murder victim, Jerry, but he does get to deliver the best line in the script: “Can’t believe they give a murdering junkie a shot of dope and call it justice.”

Earle’s focus on redemption in the play is sentimental, contrived, and inconsistent. Following their testimonies, the various characters appear to be freed from purgatory and ascend a staircase, moving toward the light — but have all of them earned salvation? Jerry, for example, rails against Karla’s sins but hasn’t come to terms with his own, which include wife beating and adultery. He has not asked for forgiveness for his actions, nor has he granted forgiveness to Karla. Are we supposed to accept that his violent murder is enough to earn him passage to Heaven? Theological concerns aside, the play is a clunky retelling of Karla Faye Tucker’s story.