Lizzie Borden Rocks: An Interview with Tim Maner

by Stefani Koorey

First published in Fall, 2009, Volume 6, Issue 2, The Hatchet: Journal of Lizzie Borden Studies.

TIM MANER, CO-CREATOR, DIRECTOR, LYRICIST, PLAYWRIGHT  DISCUSSES HIS NEWEST CREATION, A ROCK MUSICAL TITLED LIZZIE BORDEN.

How and when did you become interested in the Borden murders of 1892?

I suppose that my first interest in the story happened as a kid in 1975, when I saw the made-for-television movie The Legend of Lizzie Borden. The one with Elizabeth Montgomery where she strips naked to do the murders. And Katherine Helmond plays Emma. I mean, how could you forget that? 

As the author of the concept, book, music, and lyrics, what drove you to this project?

Years later, when we first started, I really wanted to tell an American story. I’d been reading North American folklore and American history, and I don’t really know where the initial spark came from, but somewhere along the line I started looking into Lizzie Borden as an historical figure, and then we just became incredibly fascinated by the story and the characters. Couple that with the fact that I’m also really interested in creating theatre that has elements of spectacle, and you can see that there were obviously dramatic possibilities in her story for us.

What is Lizzie Borden (the rock musical) about? How are you approaching the story? Do you offer some “solution” to the crimes?

The show is a rock roadshow retelling of the legend: the legend that is told in that four line stanza that begins “Lizzie Borden took an axe.” The guilty party as told in that song is clear. This was our starting point. But we’ve spent years researching the historical facts of the case and have incorporated many details from fact into our version of the story. While our show definitely puts Lizzie at the center of the murders, we also show Emma as a Lady Macbeth-like character stoking the flames, Bridget as a knowing (but tight-lipped) outsider and accomplice, and Alice Russell as a love interest for Lizzie, who is forced in the end to betray her.

Why a rock musical? Is there something about the story that lends itself well to this stylistic choice?

Telling the story with rock music was central  to the creation of the show from the beginning. Lizzie in her parricide kills off the old 19th Century world, and it is her generation which embarks on the 20th Century. The rebellious new generation killing off the old, is a core part of the mythology of rock in America. Lizzie just does it literally. Plus the who guitar as ax thing . . .  who could let that one go by?

What kind of challenges have you had bringing this play to the stage?

Believe it or not, one of the toughest things has been making good fake dead birds. The wild pigeons that Lizzie cared for in the barn loft play a big role (literally and metaphorically) in our story. And in one scene, Lizzie is presented with two birds, after Andrew Borden chopped their heads off. It has taken many different approaches to get to the right version that makes some people squirm and others laugh nervously.

What sources, if any, did you use in the background research for this musical? In other words, how true to life are you trying to make it? Or is this production pure camp?

The show is not pure camp (is camp really ever pure?), but it certainly has its moments. Both of camp and of rock grand guignol. I like people to laugh and gasp, and tap their feet, and nod their heads in time with the music, and have a good time. But, I hope people will also find it emotionally engaging. And be interested in the very human stories for the characters.

We have spent several years researching the story beginning with two key sources: Victoria Lincoln’s A Private Disgrace (great for all the innuendos, rumors and folklore) and Edmund Pearson’s The Trial of Lizzie Borden (great initial transcript version). We quickly focused  on the actual words of the women as documented in various public transcripts (which we have read and re-read countless times). Two other favorite 

resources are Rick Geary’s graphic novel The Borden Tragedy (a great starting point if you want some great details on the story), and David Kent’s Lizzie Borden Sourcebook (which really gives an unvarnished view of the incidents from the eyes of the public as represented by the voice of the press). And of course, your website, LizzieAndrewBorden.com, and The Hatchet have provided lots of great research opportunities.

While I know that there are some who disagree with our interpretation of the facts, I really hope that real Lizzie-philes will be able to see in the book and lyrics a real attention to the details of the history, and the spirit of the events.

Can you share a few stories about the production, stories about your directing a play based on a real person?

The most interesting and oddly haunting one is that in all of our productions and workshops, we’ve always had a hard time actually getting blood on Lizzie and her dress. In one version, we used melons full of fake blood, which she hacked with an actual axe, and even then . . . the actor playing Lizzie had to stick her hand actually IN the blood to get any on her. Make of that what you will.

There are only four women in the play it seems. An interesting choice. Can you speak to what about these women made them ideal to be turned into a play?

We see the 4 women (Lizzie, Emma, Bridget, and Alice Russell) as the key players in the story of the murders. To us, they are the most interesting and complicated people in the actual historical events, and they are the most transformed by the murders. Lizzie and Bridget of course were in and around the house during the murders. Emma was (conveniently!) away in Fairhaven. And Alice Russell, by telling the police that Lizzie burned a dress, set n motion Lizzie’s arrest and trial. The men, even Andrew Borden, have always seemed somewhat peripheral to us.

We actually made a decision early on to not have Andrew or Abby as characters, but instead for them to be the silent specters of the story, who we learn about only through Lizzie, Emma, Bridget and Alice. It mirrors the way we learned about the story through the transcripts of what those four women said. Of course, in those transcripts, Andrew and Abby are silent yet omnipresent.

The story always had a 19th century feminine narrative at its core. The frustration of these women living in a world controlled by men, where women past marrying had few choices, is what gives the household and the story its core tension. There is a great quote from Gilber and Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic, that sums it up better than I can: “Dramatizations of imprisonment and Escape are so all-pervasive in nineteenth-century literature by women that we believe they represent a  uniquely female tradition in this period.” And I believed that is why it always felt right to focus on four key female figures at the center of the story.

Plus a cast of four women fits neatly with the rock aesthetic of the show. Rock and roll is one of the few places in popular culture where women have always been able to express strength and aggression while still being very much women. Grace Slick, Patti Smith, Ann Wilson, Joan Jett, Lita Ford and others have inspired the way we’ve written these characters.

Have you ever been to Fall River and 92 Second Street?

I haven’t been to Fall River, but would love to spend some time there.

Do you think this mystery will ever be truly solved? Have you a personal theory of the Borden crime? Whodunit?

It seems unlikely that now, so many years later, the crime will ever be solved. That’s one of the things that make the case so fascinating still. Even amongst our creative team there are differing options regarding what really happened that day. But to me, the most damning evidence against Lizzie (besides her own rambling and contradictory inquest testimony) is the fact that almost all of the blows landed on their heads and faces, which to me speaks to a very personal and intimate crime. If you had just wanted Andrew and Abby dead, there would have been so many ways to do it, but to desire to obliterate their identity, their faces, seems to me to be an action that would be taken only by someone who harbored years of repressed anger.