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** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
Saucy Jack (Pollack)
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Media: Specific Titles:
Drama / Theater:
Saucy Jack (Pollack)
Author: Dr. Frederick Walker
Friday, 20 November 1998 - 11:33 am |        | On the face of it, there could be no person more qualified to write a play about Jack the Ripper than Sharon Pollack, the renowned Canadian dramatist and author of the truly chilling Lizzie Borden play Blood Relations. Her take on the Whitechapel murders is a qualified success.
Saucy Jack is frequently performed, due to its small cast and the ease of its staging. There are four characters: Prince Eddy, J.K. Stephen, M.J. Druitt and a fictional woman named Kate (whose name has no doubt been chosen with the victim Eddowes in mind.) All the action takes place at the home of Henry Wilson -- though he never appears on stage. Stephen has called a meeting of the Apostles -- Pollack has undoubtedly read Howells and Skinner -- at which he presents an unusual entertainment: a hired actress will re-enact the Whitechapel murders. It soon becomes clear that Stephen believes he is the killer. Is this true, or just a delusion? Or is the real killer somebody else in the same room? Rumbelow's alleged "knives of Jack the Ripper" are the major clues, and Druitt is depicted as a straight man, unjustly accused and wrongfully fired from his school. Much of the suspense in the play comes from the fact that it is set on December 1st -- we know that this is Druitt's last day on earth, but he doesn't. Will he jump, or will somebody give him a little push?
The strengths of this play lie in Pollack's gift for dialogue and in the detailed exposition of Stephen's character. The weaknesses lie in letting the deranged suspect have too many rambling, incoherent monologues, (and especially in letting him begin the play with one such) and in the weakness of Kate's character -- she's a monosyllabic prop for the menfolk, and we might have expected a female playwright to be less sexist. Also, in focussing on Prince Eddy and his circle, many strong suspects and theories are completely ignored. Lawende's alleged identification of Kosminski doesn't rate a mention (Pollack names Schwartz as the mystery witness, and does not name his suspect.)
There's no doubt that Pollack can write, and this play is worth the price of admission, especially for fans of The Ripper Legacy. But if only she'd been a little less creative, and simply written Blood Relations II! |
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