Playing a murdering sociopath whom an audience can warm to is a little challenging. But Katie Tonkinson clearly relishes taking on the role of one of America’s most infamous hoodlums. The actor is set to appear on the Glasgow stage in Bonnie & Clyde, the musical in which she stars as Bonnie Parker. And she delights in this dangerous and demanding machine gun of a part.
“The role is so exciting for me,” she says of playing the swaggering, sneering lipsticked outlaw. “There are so many things I like about Bonnnie – how sassy she is. I really can’t wait to bring my version of that into the character.” Tonkinson adds: “I’m really looking forward for everyone to see how exciting this show is.”
There’s little doubt that Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow captured the imagination of the American public back in the Depression days. Barrow had been a low-level criminal until he was sent to jail and raped, and when he exited prison was described as ‘a schoolboy turned into a rattlesnake.’ He set about becoming a full-time career criminal, robbing small stores and gas stations but it was when he met Parker, through a mutual friend, that the pair made their mark on the American psyche.
Clearly theirs was a love story for the public to latch its imagination onto to, but the notion of the romantic criminals was given a massive publicity blow up when the police found photographs of the gang, posing with guns, and in Parker’s case, a cigar.
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Suddenly, newspapers couldn’t get enough of these young hoodlums who were flash and astonishingly dangerous, seemingly prepared to take life on a whim, and yet not be overly concerned that their own lives were doomed to be short and inglorious.
Katie Tonkinson points out however that this musical doesn’t rely upon shooting down the audience with tales of wanton violence, watching 14 cops mowed down and many civilians. In fact, it owes much to the sympathetic tone imbued by the 1967 movie starring Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty.
“There’s the fact that you see all of her journey during a long period of time,” the Bat Out of Hell star explains. “She starts out as a teenager and then you see her transformation into the concept of Bonnie and Clyde. It’s interesting to portray all of these chapters she goes through. It’s a stimulating arc, developing the relationship with Clyde, making sure that it’s gradual and making sure the audience understands how every slight incident changes them.”
What the musical does to reinforce awareness that Bonnie Parker began life as a functioning human being is to reveal she was a poetry writer. And there’s a hint she had a something of a Robin Hood motivation behind her crime spree. “You have to rob the banks before they rob you,” she argues, a line that had stronger currency back in Texas in 1930. And we are also treated to insight of Clyde Barrow, a man who seems to love himself as much as he loves Bonnie Parker.
This dynamic of the lover-murderers has long fascinated society, with examples such as Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, Fred and Rose West. And it begs the question if they had not become a couple, would their full murderous capability ever have emerged?
But the real question is should we feel any sympathy whatsoever for the likes of Bonnie Parker, who doesn’t set out to join the Most Wanted list – yet finds herself happily going along with her boyfriend’s easy ability to murder? The show, in order not to alienate the audience, suggests an intent to de-glamorise the couple (the real-life Bonnie Parker was once described by a writer as ‘having a face like raw wood shaped like a hatchet.’) But of course, the lead roles are played by two exceptionally good-looking people, and as a result they emerge as romantic runaways.
The audience is certainly pulled along by the charisma and energy of Bonnie Parker. “You root for her,” said one reviewer.
But what Bonnie & Clyde (a West End hit for two years) does manage successfully however is to avoid obvious comedy potential in a piece so dark. Clearly lots of work has gone into shaping tone. And the songs by Don Black and Frank Wildhorn, featuring country, bluegrass and blues, (such as Dyin’ Ain’t So Bad) blend perfectly.
What should be added however is that the musical’s success isn’t solely dependent upon the talents of the two leads. Bonnie and Clyde are backed by his brother Buck (Sam Farriday) and his disapproving wife Blanche, (played by former Coronation Street star Catherine Tyldesley), with performances that lend real power to the production.
And while we may not leave the theatre understanding truly why ‘Folks are calling Bonnie and Clyde heroes”) we do gain a real sense of how two small-town youngsters managed to make themselves notorious.
Bonnie and Clyde: The Musical, the King’s Theatre, Glasgow, April 16-20.
Don’t Miss: Pretty Woman, The Musical.
Yes, the storyline is entirely improbable, and the lead characters drawn in with a thick black marker. But that hasn’t dented the popularity of this Eighties Cinderella tale in which the cold-hearted banker’s heart is melted by a gorgeous sex worker with vault loads of emotional intelligence and a pair of killer thigh boots.
Edinburgh Playhouse, April 2 – 13.
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