Overview

Chicago, May 21, 1924. Nathan Leopold Jr., age eighteen, and Robert Loeb, age nineteen, killed fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks. They were quickly apprehended when Leopold’s glasses were found near the corpse. Clarence Darrow defended them, pleading eloquently against capital punishment. Why would wealthy young men murder an innocent boy? What demons lurked behind Loeb’s flashing good looks? Behind Leopold’s saturnine intellect? This exquisite Off-Broadway hit explores the complex relationship between these two who longed to create a private world of fevered intellect and romantic passion. The author suggests that, given twists of fate and character, Leopold or Loeb could be anyone who has loved too much, had a broken heart, wanted to prove everlasting devotion, or looked at a loved one and thought, “I’d die for you…I’d kill for you.” This is a love story set to themes of crime and punishment, the press, the times, humanism, Nietzsche’s philosophy, and the end of the jazz age.