By Talia Carl­isle

Have you ever heard someone scream bloody murder?

It’s worth cut­ting down the door to watch LIZZIE, the rock­ing hit music­al by WITCH Music Theatre, where murder sounds hellishly good…. This punk rock’n’rollercoaster will keep you on the edge of your seat from start to fin­ish. So tight­en your cor­set and quieten the jury ready to hear the magic of LIZZIE at Circa Theatre until 7 Septem­ber.

This is not your typ­ic­al music­al (thank good­ness), and Liz­zie isn’t your typ­ic­al Sunday school teach­er brought up in a wealthy but dys­func­tion­al fam­ily in a small town in Mas­sachu­setts.

Liz­zie is a star for all the wrong reas­ons when she becomes the prime sus­pect in the 1892 real-life murder case of Lizzie’s fath­er Andrew – a wealthy busi­ness­man, and his wife Abby in the small town of Fall River, Mas­sachu­setts, south of Boston.

But enough about them, our Liz­zie is sen­sa­tion­ally brought to life by Bailea Twomey (Ngāti Awa, Ngāi Te Ran­gi, Tapuika) against a back­drop of stun­ning eleg­ance, charm and archi­tec­ture in the Borden’s fam­ily home turned to crime scene, with Liz­zie spin­ning the tales the town wants to hear.

Dir­ec­ted by Ben Tuck­er-Emer­son, and Co-Dir­ect­or & Cho­reo­graph­er Greta Casey-Solly (Te Atiawa), it’s no doubt the move­ment is seam­lessly woven into every scene with beau­ti­ful storytelling and dra­mat­ic fash­ion by cos­tume design­er Rhys Tun­ley.

You can’t for­get the divine har­mon­ies from our leads. Vocal Dir­ect­or Maya Handa Naff has her work cut out with these enchant­ing and sur­pris­ing har­mon­ies that keep us on our toes and in awe of such won­der­ful per­formers with stand out songs Some­body Will Do Some­thing, What the F**k Now, Liz­zie?, and Burn the Old Thing Up – where  things really get burned up with full dra­mat­ic effect!

No evid­ence is passed over, and no stone unturned on this adven­ture through his­tory which has become immor­tal­ised in film, in music, and in a fam­ous poem which sounds epic onstage with elec­tric gui­tar by Steve Mor­ris­on in our pro­logue Forty Whacks.

Pro­duc­tion Design­er Joshua Tuck­er-Emer­son ensures Lizzie’s world looks fab­ulous too, helped by Light­ing Design­er Alex ‘Fish’ Fish­er who has installed a mil­lion lights by my count, and we are blinded with tal­ent all even­ing in the beau­ti­ful Bor­den home.

The melodi­ous and curi­ous music and lyr­ics by Alan Stevens Hewitt and Steven Ches­lik-DeMey­er become my favour­ites instantly with the lyr­ics, book and addi­tion­al music by Tim Man­er.

Just like her small town, we fall in love with Liz­zie and her angel­ic voice in This Is Not Love, so if Liz­zie is in the wrong – we don’t want to be right!

Right beside Liz­zie is her sto­ic older sis­ter, the ever patient Emma Bor­den per­formed by Jane Leonard (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Hine).

Alice Rus­sell is a won­der­ful part­ner in crime for Liz­zie, per­formed by the cap­tiv­at­ing Rachel McSweeney whose inno­cent voice and melod­ies are raised to the heav­ens.

House­keep­er Brid­get ‘Mag­gie’ Sul­li­van is only too happy to bring these women back to earth and to their senses, and this is a role Aimée Sul­li­van clearly enjoys while rock­ing the house down in style, in Mer­cury Rising, and The Fall of the House of Borden/”The The Alibi”.

Just like any rock’n’roll story, our queen needs a rock­ing band, delivered with rock­star qual­ity in Music Dir­ect­or Hay­den Taylor (Ngai Tahu).

Steve Mor­ris­on rocks out on gui­tar and pulls our heartstrings as well as gui­tar strings in Lizzie’s bal­lad This Is Not Love.

Our rock­star drum­mer Becs Wat­son man­ages the dif­fi­cult task of max­im­ising the punk rock ele­ments of the show without drown­ing out our leads who have immacu­late annun­ci­ation which helps carry us along with ease, along with Bassist Grace Kendrick.

Esth­er Lee is mes­mer­ising on Cello, turn­ing every rock bal­lad and anthem into a work of art.

There is so much tal­ent onstage and off­stage in this pro­duc­tion includ­ing our swing act­ors Adri­ana Calabrese and Jade Merematira who are legends in the WITCH rep­er­toire that I look for­wards to see­ing and hear­ing onstage again soon.

There are also so many thank yous in the pro­gramme which does not sur­prise me, as every WITCH pro­duc­tion is filled with love you can see and hear, and this tal­en­ted and hard­work­ing exten­ded com­munity is my only explan­a­tion for how LIZZIE can be pulled togeth­er with such bril­liant qual­ity and tech­nic­al bril­liancy at Circa in four short weeks of rehears­als. As usu­al, I am com­pletely amazed.

WITCH suc­ceeds from start to fin­ish with its bril­liant selec­tion of yet anoth­er magic­ally enga­ging and innov­at­ive work, this time cham­pi­on­ing female empower­ment, a strong LGBTQIA+ love story, and justice – but for who, you must watch to find out.

No won­der LIZZIE is selling out quick! Where else can you find mys­tery, intrigue and flaw­less fash­ion, wrapped in a bloody beau­ti­ful bow of explod­ing tal­ent by Wellington’s best cre­at­ors and innov­at­ors on the cut­ting edge of music­al theatre.