★★★★☆
Based on an infamous true story, this superbly economical and gripping staging of the American composer Stephen Dolginoff’s musical two-hander comes to London direct from the Edinburgh Fringe as part of Arcola Theatre’s summer opera festival, Grimeborn (although this is more musical theatre than opera). Maybe, in this instance only, it should be renamed “Crimeborn”, given the work’s sordid, but compelling source material.
In 1924 two wealthy University of Chicago students, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, murdered a pubescent boy just for kicks. Their Nietzsche-inspired act was widely labelled “the crime of the century”. The great lawyer Clarence Darrow eloquently defended the young men, who were also involved sexually, in court. Their horrendous deed caught the public imagination and that of artists. (In 1948