Killing Women Takes Aim at Assassins

Have you ever watched a James Bond flick and wondered, "How do femmes fatales find reliable day care?" Wonder no longer. Marisa Wegrzyn's Killing Women, a satire on corporate America, ventures where Hollywood dares not tread. 

The play—part feminist allegory, part shaggy-dog story—centers around Abby, a professional assassin in crisis. On the same day her boss promotes a young male colleague past her, he asks her to kill a woman—worse, a single mother. Abby pleads for a chance to recruit her instead of killing her, only to find this PTA Wonder Woman zip right by her in the corporate hierarchy.

Unfortunately, both the writing and the performance of the central character fall short. Lori Prince, as Abby, fails to be either a strong type (self-denying careerist? Late-blooming moralist?) or a vivid collection of incoherencies. Wegrzyn has done her no favors by crafting a role that swerves from nonchalance to über-quirk in the blink of an eye.

Wegrzyn does, though, have a fine ear for dialogue, as long as the pace stays frantic, and her more outlandish characterizations hit the mark perfectly. Adam Kantor, as a series of lovesick, moody, and/or insomniac targets, rides high on Wegrzyn's more energetic writing—and Lisa Brescia, an assassin and the femmest of the fatales, fills the play with disconcerting charm.