A Toronto-based theatre company is developing a play based on the intense police interrogation in which convicted sex killer Russell Williams confessed his crimes.
The One Little Goat Theatre Company plans to premiere "Smyth/Williams" in March, with an all-female cast that will alternate the roles of the interrogating officer and Williams through the performance.
The company's artistic director, Adam Seelig, says he first got the idea for the play in 2010, when Williams' case and his confession to Ontario Provincial Police Det. Sgt. Jim Smyth was making headlines.
Seelig says he was amazed at the time by Smyth's ingenuity and chilled by Williams' matter-of-fact confessions to heinous crimes, all strong material for a theatrical performance.
But Seelig says he only moved to make the play a reality after noticing what he called a recent urgency around the issue of violence against women, particularly against women in the military.
Williams, once a rising star in the Canadian Forces, was sentenced to life in prison in October 2010 after pleading guilty to the murders of two women, 37-year-old Cpl. Marie-France Comeau and 27-year-old Jessica Lloyd.