Killer Joe

Killer Joe may be one of the most deliberately unpleasant pieces of theatre ever performed. It is at points extremely funny, and at others truly horrific, sometimes combining the two so that half the audience are laughing and the other half are left stunned and sickened.

Set among the white trash of Texas, the plot is an almost farcical affair concerning a small-time drug peddler, his borderline autistic sister and their attempt to take out a hit on their own mother for her life insurance policy. Their agent is the eponymous Joe, a cop who runs a neat little earner in assassinations.

Among the wash-outs and losers of the trailer park, the greasy Joe - whose pretentions at Southern gentility make him only more revolting - becomes appallingly powerful. Unlike the others, he has well more than half a brain, coupled with a complete willingness to use violence. As the plot unfolds, the menace he exudes from the start becomes more and more palpable, beguiling and intimidating the dim-witted sister into bed, so that soon he reigns tyrannically over the whole household.

This is a brilliantly-made piece of theatre, and leaves a large part of the audience - the part that wasn't laughing - shaken and terrified. Arguably, its violence and filth have no point, and possibly don't even make sense; but in terms of sheer impact, very few productions are more powerful.