"Killer Joe" by Tracy Letts

         Tracy Letts was born in July of 1965 in Tulsa, OK. His father was an actor and his mother was a novelist; both were professors while Letts grew up. Letts ended up dropping out of college one semester to move to Dallas, TX to attempt to be an actor. Finding Dallas unsatisfactory, he tried Chicago and Los Angeles. He eventually settled permanently in Chicago in 1985.

         In 1991, Letts wrote Killer Joe, which premiered in Chicago in 1993, and then New York in 1994. Killer Joe’s Chicago cast brought the script to the Edinburgh Festival and won a Fringe First award. It has since been produced in at least 15 countries. Letts continued his screenwriting with Bug, which debuted in London in 1996. It was produced in Chicago and in New York off-Broadway as well. Bug won four Lucille Lortel awards, two Obie awards and a Theatre World award.

         In 2003, Letts wrote and produced Man from Nebraska, which was produced at Steppenwolf Theatre Company. It was a 2004 Pulitzer finalist, although it received mixed reviews. In 2007, Letts wrote August: Osage County. Winner of a 2008 Pulitzer Prize and five Tony awards, it debuted at Steppenwolf in June 2007 and then on Broadway in December 2007. It has been produced in 16 countries since its original debut.

         Bug was the first of Letts plays to be made into a full-length movie. Letts wrote the screenplay, and the film featured Michael Shannon, a cast member from the premiere. The film grossed over $8 million in the box office, a considerable bit more than the $4 million budget.

         Following the success of Bug, Killer Joe was adapted into a screenplay by Letts as well. William Friedkin came along as the director as well, and the play had a fairly well known cast. However, during production, the play received an NC-17 rating from the MPAA. Friedkin said he was uninterested in censoring the film, and released the film with the NC-17 rating, causing little success in the box office. The film has since had the NC-17 rating rescinded and the film was released on DVD with an unrated tag on it. Letts wrote a screenplay for August: Osage County, which is currently in production.

Letts remains an active member of Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

Killer Joe is a gory, comedic drama involving a trailer family from Texas. Chris, who owes money to a powerful person in the city, decides with his father to pay a detective / contract killer, dubbed “Killer Joe”, to kill his mother, who he believes to have a hefty life insurance policy that is due to his sister, Dottie, when she dies. Due to Killer Joe’s policies, neither Chris nor his father, Ansel, can pay the $25 thousand upfront, so Killer Joe tries to strike a deal with them using Dottie as a retainer. As the play progresses, Chris’ character becomes more desperate to get the insurance payout causing his and his family’s relationships much more strained.

The play has many instances of family dysfunction. Strangely enough, Chris convinces his father to want to hire a contract killer to kill his Mother, Ansel’s ex-wife. The relationship between Chris and his father is far from normal, and Dottie is extremely antisocial, having said to have only had one boyfriend when she was in the 3^rd grade. Dottie’s antisocial nature is seen when her father and stepmother try and court her to be with Killer Joe as a retainer.

Killer Joe’s character is interesting. Chris and Ansel see him as an extremely powerful figure, who deems respect through his demeanor, and acts like it as well. When he is with Dottie, he becomes much more of a narcissistic and controlling person.

There is a huge emphasis on sexual themes throughout the play. We have the rape scene between Killer Joe and Dottie, the main part of which is brought out from Killer Joe pulling out memories from her childhood. Also, Ansel’s wife is secretly messing around with Ansel’s ex-wife’s current boyfriend, although you never see it. It is only brought out in the end when Killer Joe approaches her with incriminating photos. Speaking of that scene, Killer Joe forces her to perform oral sex on a chicken leg that he simulates to be his member, where he acts like he (or maybe does) get pleasure from it.

In the end, Chris’ desire to see Killer Joe out of his and his family’s life ends up being his fatal flaw. His father turns on him, and his sister shoots him. Whether he is trying to protect her from Killer Joe or selfishly keep her to himself, we may never know.

Questions to consider:

1. In regards to the adaptation into the film, Letts said this about censoring the film: "Cutting would not have made it mass appeal. Cutting it would have been the equivalent of what members of the United States government and military leaders said about the Vietnam War. They said, "We have to destroy Vietnam in order to save it," and that's what I would have done to Killer Joe. To get an R rating, I would have had to destroy it in order to save it and I wasn't interested in doing that." Do you think that Letts made the right decision to not change the film? Do you think the film could have had the same impact if censored, even if it was ever so slight? (i.e. without full frontal nudity, brutal rape scene, etc.)

2. When Dottie gets naked for Killer Joe, she says "Babies.", What do you think she meant by this?

3. Do you believe that Chris deserved any at all blame in not knowing Dottie was not the beneficiary when it is proven later that Rex implants both the idea of the insurance payout and using Killer Joe into his head? Why or why not?

4. Why do you believe that Ansel seems nonchalant while Killer Joe beats up Sharla and then rapes her in the mouth with a piece of chicken?

5. Why do you think the characters treat the idea of killing Adele so casually?

6. Killer Joe takes Dottie as a retainer, and may have (if Chris told him to) left her cold turkey without doing the killing. Do you think his relationship with Dottie was anything more than an agreement between himself and Ansel / Chris ?

7. The play has had a somewhat successful showing throughout the world. Explain what allure this play might have for a global audience.

8. Matthew McConaughey was cast as the lead role for Killer Joe. If you were to pick any other actor for the same role, who might you pick?

9. What traits about Killer Joe do you think make his character such a good contract killer?

10. What about Dottie or Killer Joe's personalities do you think drew the characters together so strongly?