Lorilei: A Meditation on Loss
Old Red Lion

WHEN a convicted paedophile admitted to killing a young boy in the Deep South, the child’s broken mother was the one made to feel guilty when she fought to repeal the killer’s death sentence.
Her story is brought to dramatic life in this play adapted from transcripts of a television interview with the mother, Lorilei Guillory, who director Nicholas Harrington met in 1998.
At her lowest point Lorilei (Anna Galvin) is ostracised even by her family for refuting the common belief that only capital punishment will bring justice for her son.
In a darkened room, sparsely decked-out with a table and three chairs, Galvin sits motionless to deliver Lorilei’s monologue in a southern drawl with an intensity that dares anyone in the room to stir.
She recalls how the letters of sympathy turned to letters of hate after she spoke out against the death sentence and observes that both sets of mail probably came from the same concerned correspondents.
Following the death of her child and the cruel circumstances in which it took place, Lorilei Guillory fell into a spiral of depression and substance abuse.
This was made worse by the fact the circumstances of her six-year-old son’s death were not explained to her by the authorities and it took some 10 years, when the case went to retrial, for her to get close to the truth.
This play demonstrates her human empathy – while she refuses to be a pawn for either the defence or the prosecution in Langley’s trial, she will not be implicated in the death of another mother’s son.
These Red Lion performances are sponsored by the death penalty charity Reprieve and Galvin’s sensitive performance ensures their political message is well made.

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