The Stage

Catcher: Before Chapman Shot Lennon

Published Wednesday 19 May 2010 at 12:49 by Kevin Berry

On Mark Chapman’s last night of anonymity he moved from the YMCA into a hotel and sent for a prostitute. The next day he calmly shot John Lennon and the prostitute has never been heard from since. No one bothered to seek her out.

Richard Hurford’s new play, for the ever busy Pilot Theatre company, suggests what might have taken place. It looks at Chapman’s motives and wild fantasies, which were heavily influenced by his incessant reading of The Catcher in the Rye.

The prostitute, played with admirable sureness by Mitzi Jones, is now a surprisingly neat, respectable looking woman. She confides in the audience, there is an agreement to take us back to that night. We want to know more because she knows, the public’s curiosity is part of the business of fame and Chapman has his fame. She has the power of being unknown.

Jones and Ronan Summers, as Chapman, make an intriguing pairing. They succeed in bringing the audience into the hotel room. How they will go their separate ways gives the play its tension. Her woman is realistic, capable of day dreams but appreciating the likely pitfalls. Chapman is played as part bewildered victim.

His plans have a troubling logic. The Catcher In The Rye is his bible. He has become Holden Caulfield, the novel’s protagonist, but will soon go a significant step further than Caulfield.

Catcher has had the benefit of much research and development and the live streaming, via the internet, of a rehearsed reading. It deserves and will get unwavering attention.