‘Dick and Perry’ a Walk on Dark Side

A fluke of fate brought Dick E. Hickok and Perry E. Smith to a hangman’s noose, and another made them famous. In Charles Pike’s darkly absorbing “Fun With Dick and Perry,” at the Evidence Room, the rootless and nervous friendship of these two killers, immortalized in Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood,” is examined.

Hickok and Smith are unsophisticated but intelligent men with troubled childhoods who meet in prison and attempt to commit the perfect crime. Hickok (Michael Childers) obsesses on his former cellmate’s tale of a farmer who lives “in a single home on an isolated road.” He hears the $20,000 locked in a safe calling him to “rescue” it and fantasizes about raping the young teenage daughter. Smith (Steve Sherwin) has apprehensions, but goes along to show his “level of commitment” to their sexually hazy relationship. They murder the Clutter family--father, mother, daughter and son, for $42. There were “no witnesses,” but Hickok’s old cellmate’s memory sends them to the gallows.

The real trial left questions about psychological testing (the M’Naghten test) and the wisdom of the Miranda ruling, but Pike is more interested in the men--edgy and totally unsuited for life outside prison.

Directors Marla Cotovsky and Jef Bek make these men into greasy, uneasy white trash with only vague social boundaries to govern their behavior. Childers is a slick chameleon--a con man who slips from tough-talking macho to smooth-talking country boy. Sherwin plays a needy, anxiety-ridden, somewhat studious drifter who corrects Hickok’s grammar and is plagued by guilt.

Hickok and Smith are scary reminders that the real monsters aren’t make believe.

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* “Fun With Dick and Perry,” Evidence Room, 3542 Hayden Ave., Culver City. Mondays-Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Ends Dec. 17. $12. (310) 841-2799. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes.