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.