KU theater: University Theatre's season-opening drama deals with matricide and its motives

By Bill Blankenship

The Capital-Journal

LAWRENCE --- The season-opening play at the University of Kansas explores the often unanswered question of why seemingly good people do such bad things.

"It seems as if, suddenly, people who were once considered 'normal' by their neighbors are transformed into perpetrators, victims and abusers," said KU graduate student Megan Shea, who is directing the University Theatre production of Phyllis Nagy's drama, "Butterfly Kiss."

"The crime attracts the attention of the entire nation," said Shea, a master's degree candidate from Quincy, Mass. "We wonder why. Why did Susan Smith drown her children? Why did the tragedy at Columbine occur? Why are the killers' morals different from our own?

"We blame violent media, video games and lack of gun control as we search for motive in the details of the life of the murderer. We give importance to speculations of friends, neighbors and relatives. But how often do we take seriously what the murderer has to say about her actions?"

It is the murderer's viewpoint that is presented in "Butterfly Kiss," which Shea describes as "an exploration into the mind of a young woman who has recently murdered her mother."

"As the woman is questioned about her motive for this act of horror, she flashes back to a childhood filled with abuse," Shea said. "Her memories detail how her grandmother, mother and father all took part in subjecting her to their dysfunctional whims."

The entire play focuses on the murderer, Lily Ross (played by Amber McIntosh, a senior from Peabody).

"Spectators get a glimpse of life through this woman's eyes," Shea explained. "The events that happen occur with other people, but are always taken from her point of view. The character is dark; she was driven to murder her own mother and appears as guiltless in the eyes of the audience and to the other characters onstage."

Those other characters (and their actors) are: Martha (Kate Haugan, senior, Lenexa; Jenny (Megan Schemmel, senior, Shawnee); Sally (Becky Lake, senior, Stilwell); Teddy Roosevelt Hayes (Bob Dorsey, junior, Lansing); Jackson Trouver (Clancy O'Connor, sophomore, Smolan); Christine (Hannah Ballou, junior, Topeka); and Sloan (Colum Parke, senior, Spirewood, Texas).

The entire play is set in Ross' jail cell, although her memories transform the cell into several settings, including her childhood home.

"The place presented onstage appears to be not only the physical prison where she is located, but also the prison of her mind," Shea said. "As the play continues, we see a woman trapped by her past or by her remembrance of everything that has happened earlier in life. During her recollections, her emotions demonstrate a coldness which can only stem from a complete shutdown of human affection."

"Butterfly Kiss" is the opening production in the KU Women's Play Festival, part of the William Inge Memorial Theatre Series.

"This play is for women, by a woman and about women," Shea said.

Bill Blankenship can be reached at bblankenship@cjonline.com