Lets talk about Killer Joe for a bit

Killer Joe was written by Tracy Letts in 1991 but it wasn’t produced until 1993 because of the violence in the play. It’s first production was in Evanston, Illinois by Next Lab. If you want to find the play my suggestion would be to buy it. It’s very good.

 

In Killer Joe, a trailer park family falls into trouble with money when the son Chris falls into debt with some bad people. In order to pay it off, they hire the hit man Killer Joe to kill the mother (who is not in the play as the parents are divorced and the father is remarried) to collect the life insurance. Killer Joe takes the sister Dottie as a “retainer” to make sure he gets his cut when the job is done. It all falls to hell after that.

 

I think the fact that the play is set in a trailer park is very interesting. Letts could have set it in a middle or upper class neighborhood with the same basic plot but because he set it in the trailer park it seems sadder, in a way. Because that’s where it’s set it’s gritty and rough and just violent.

Letts also chooses to not show the mother at all in this play. She is only mentioned and not very fondly. By keeping her out of the picture, the audience can only form opinions based on what we are told about her, all of which is, again, not very good. Another thing that would happen if the mother was actually in the play, is that it would take the focus off the characters of Dottie, Chris, and Joe (and to a lesser extent Ansel and Sharla) and put more focus on the murder plot which isn’t really the point.