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On This Bed
Axis Theatre Company’s Down There examines the murder of Sylvia Likens
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On this bed, in 1965, lie 16-year-old Sylvia Likens tied up, beaten with a board, burned with cigarettes, bathed in scalding water, starved and finally “I am a prostitute” was carved into her abdomen by the teenage neighbors who would come over after school for daily torture to their classmate. Who could have done such a thing? How could have this happened?
Down There, produced by the Axis Theatre Company, is written and directed by Randy Sharp. Encore recently sat down with Sharp to talk about this horrific crime and her new play.
Encore: How did you get connected to this project?
Randy Sharp: Sixteen years ago somebody, I can’t remember who, gave me Kate Millet’s book The Basement. Basically it’s the story of Sylvia Likens’ murder while she was a boarder with Gertrude Baneszewski. At the time, I loved the fact that she wrote from the literal point of view of several characters. Now I feel that’s a little assumptive and self-important, but it doesn’t change my feelings about this incredible story.
Why is this story of importance to you?
One thing, or maybe the most important thing, that caught my attention was the length of time that the murder took to complete and the numerous interchangeable perpetrators. How could a diverse group of people get up, go to school, interact with other people, eat snacks, play and talk to each other and then return night after night to beat and torture someone imprisoned in a basement? How was there not a single wavering resolve?
Your focus on these tragic events is on the “how” of these incidents. How could this happen? Can you elaborate?
I am fascinated by what conditions are needed to make normal people act this way. I don’t think anything about Sylvia’s murder is “crazy” or impossible or is never to be repeated. I want to examine as many different components as possible to try and learn how fairly reasonable people can get to a position where they would commit this kind of crime.
What were your challenges in writing this for the theater?
The violence that happened to Sylvia is not theatrical. To be clear, I mean that to simply show her being tortured to death “live onstage” actually releases the audience from experiencing it. They can sit back and say, “WOW! That looks so real!” or “I wonder how they did that?” Theatre should be utilized when it’s the only art form that will work with given material. If I wanted to show the literal violence, I would probably make a movie of it where the audience’s disconnection is implied and absorbed in a different process. It was our challenge to bring the violence into the minds of the audience in a more profound way. Using a word like “impressionist” seems weird when speaking about this play but what we succeed in doing, I believe, is making an impression of all the violence that cuts deeper than artless stage blood effects.
What were the casting challenges?
You could think that because there are teenagers in the story and I have no teenage actors in the company that this was a problem. I think audience members will find that it’s not. If you live in a world where something like this can happen, your age is irrelevant.
As a director, how do you work with the actors to reach places that, in this case, are so far beyond human experience?
Under the conditions of this event I don’t think it’s far beyond the experience of any human, including the audience.
What are you hoping the audience will leave thinking or feeling about these events?
How this could happen often or has happened more than we think.
Down There runs from September 9-October 30, and tickets can be purchased here.