STAGE REVIEW : ‘Tiger Lady’ Probes Killer’s Motives

Murderer Winnie Ruth Judd wasn’t too bright. She shipped the dismembered bodies of her two victims from Phoenix to Los Angeles by train, in two trunks and a carpet bag. The cops were waiting.

“Tiger Lady,” at the Tamarind Theatre, re-creates her true story. In Layce Gardner’s tightly constructed chronicle play, most of the tale takes place in Winnie’s mind, or at least the part of her mind she allows psychiatrist Elijah Martin to visit. It’s 1932, she’s on Death Row, and the good doctor is trying to find out if she’s insane.

Winnie’s flashbacks return to her youth, and the confused, love-starved mother who tormented her. The brief mention of her marriage is not enough to fill in some gaps in her personality profile, but does lead into her friendship with Anne Leroi and Sammy Samuelson, lesbian lovers with whom bisexual Winnie becomes close, and who eventually become her victims.

The play has some minor problems, in the rapid transitions to the several locales Winnie remembers, but these are adequately smoothed over in John Rust’s direction, aided immeasurably by Joe Cashman’s lighting and his set, which extends the Death Row cell to include a back yard, courtroom and Anne and Sammy’s living room.

Rust keeps a tight rein on the ever-changing rhythms that keep the heartbeat of the script throbbing. And he has a fine performance to work with in Paige O’Hara’s Winnie. O’Hara’s flat, Midwestern accent (Judd was raised in Indiana) is right on, as are her seamless manic-depressive leaps. She capitalizes on Winnie’s innate sense of humor, which helps to lighten the tragic events as they unfold, and bolsters the playwright’s hint that Judd may have been pulling the doctor’s leg.

If she was, Dr. Martin wasn’t aware. Richard Michael Conti as Martin, gentle and trusting, a sincere practitioner of a fairly new science, provides fine counterpoint to Winnie’s fireworks.

As Winnie’s mother, Susan Kussman is often too broad to match the rest of the cast, but at times she’s heartbreaking in her confusion. Kristina Sanborn and Margaret Kilbourne are silky-smooth as the victims, providing more detail than is written, and Michael Lariscy provides a vivid picture of the local ne’er-do-well who dallies with Winnie. Bob Prest is properly pontifical as the Judge.

* “Tiger Lady,” Tamarind Theatre, 5919 Franklin Ave., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends July 15. $15; (213) 466-1767. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.