Dreamwell's Innocence Asks: What Makes a Monster?

By James E. Trainor III

Dreamwell - Pedro Lopez was found guilty of murdering 110 girls in Ecuador and confessed to murdering another 240 in Peru and Colombia. This isn't part of the play; this is true. Or rather, it's part of the play and it's true. Lopez's story is well-documented, and if you're not the type with a queasy stomach, you can Google it; it's all there in black and white. But playwright Tom Deiker, for whom even serial killers can give us insight into the human condition, is much more interested in the gray. That Lopez is a monster is clear, but how did he get that way? What makes a monster?

The action of the play follows a reporter (Chuck Dufano) who is trying to answer that question. He speaks to the people who have been dealing with Lopez's case, and the people who had effects on his childhood. His mother (Elizabeth Breed), a prostitute with twelve other children, threw him out on the street at age eight. Shortly thereafter he was kidnapped and brutally raped. The reporter speaks to a warden (Kevin Moore) who attempted to solve Lopez's crimes, a teacher (Nelson Gurll) who took him in only to molest him, a manic sheriff (Brian Tanner) who laughs off the obscene violence that surrounds him, and an American nun (Ariane Parkes-Perret) who rescued him from an angry mob.

All this tragedy and mistreatment could serve to exonerate Pedro Lopez, make him sympathetic and ultimately write him off as a messed-up kid, and it does -- to a point. However, the reporter also talks to Pedro himself (Ken Van Egdon), who is unrepentant, manipulative and downright frightening. When he describes his crimes, it is with the dreamy tones of one seduced by lust or power. He's confident he will be released, and he has no intention to cease in his quest -- or compulsion -- to rob others of their innocence, as he was robbed of his.

The tone of the piece wavers between calm, still moments of reflection and sudden flashes of emotion. The colors of the set are dry and the lights are hot, invoking an oppressive summer in a South American climate. Pauline Tyer's direction does not push the theatricality at all, and the scenes are honest, organic, and for the most part subdued. Much of the action is seated as the reporter conducts his interviews, but the intensity of the dialogue rarely rests for a beat. As the reporter uncovers more and more of Pedro's life story, his mission embroils him in sticky moral dilemmas, and the other characters are stuck with him at his table, essentially trying to solve the problem of evil itself.

Pedro Lopez, however confined in his cell, is comparatively free. He comes off the
stage to the footlights, leering at the audience and implicating them for being spectators to his ghastly crimes. When he is done telling his story, he strides confidently through the audience to the front door of the theatre, reminding us that the real-life Pedro Lopez was set free and most likely killed again.

The effect is quite unsettling. Lopze's very presence is a slap in the face, intended to wake us up to the suffering that goes on around us. The content of Innocence is extremely graphic, though none of it is gratuitous. Dreamwell artists, thankfully, do not shy away from the horror of this piece, as Tyer says, the goal is to make the audience "emotionally responsible," not to "make it easy on you."

It's tough stuff. But not without purpose; these are, after all, questions that have haunted us for ages. If we're to attribute a sense of order to the universe, whether divine or secular, how does we account for such needless suffering? What makes an innocent boy become such a monster? Was there a point at which he could have been saved? Is he to blame? His mother? His rapist? None of these questions is easy to examine, and none of them has final answers, but Innocence does well to explore them so thoroughly, if only to warn us that we all hold the seed of violent aggression that made Pedro Lopez "The Monster of the Andes."

The cast is really strong, particularly considering how hard this material is to read, let alone perform. Dufano is at his best as the journalist, and we see him grow from detached and only intellectually involved to intensely affected as his morbid curiosity is satisfied. In the later scenes, when he confronts Pedro's mother and teacher, he is fiery and fierce but in excellent physical and vocal control.

Breed's performance as the mother is sympathetic and her accent is quite convincing. Moore is very solid as the warden; his accent is impeccable and he makes great use of his physical presence despite the rather static staging. Tanner is energetic as the excitable sheriff, and while his accent tends to slip and one wants to push his energy level even higher, he shows off a surprising range here. Parkes-Perret brings reflection and calm courage to this explosive world as a nun in the midst of a spiritual crisis, and Gurll is very believable as the weasely teacher who took advantage of Lopez. His performance is particularly nuanced; though he only appears in two scenes, he is able to telegraph his guilt in the first one without going over the top.

Van Egdon is simply chilling. This is not to say he isn't charming at times, even
funny, but his portrayal of this disheveled beast is so compellingly present that it makes one's skin crawl. When he confesses -- almost brags -- about his crimes, we grimace at the unrepentant monster before us. When he challenges the audience about the monster within each of us, we are horrified but helpless to object. Yet when he finally reveals his vulnerability, telling the story about how his own innocence was shattered, we are unable to dismiss him. There's a little boy behind all of that evil, a boy long ago thrown into a cruel and violent world and now locked into compulsively playing out the same incident until someone stops him for good. There are many layers here, and Van Egdon expresses them all with nuance, courage, passion and skill.

Innocence is playing for two days only, November 19th and 20th, at the Unitarian Universalist Society in Iowa City. Showtime is at 7:30 pm, and tickets are available at Dreamwell's website.