Events: Lorilei, a Meditation on Loss
Like This is a true story, Lorilei is co-production by Reprieve Australia, Theatre Tarquin and Reprieve UK.
The play recreates the experiences of the mother of Jeremy Guillory who was just six when he was murdered in 1992 by Ricky Langley, who was sentenced to death for the crime. Nine years later, the courts ordered a new trial. By this time, the prosecutor's promise that a death sentence would give Lorilei Guillory her ‘closure’ had proven hollow, so she did an extraordinary thing: she asked to meet Ricky Langley.
They spent three hours alone together. By the end of the meeting, she was convinced that Ricky Langley was insane when he murdered her son. In 2003 Ricky Langley was granted a retrial at which Lorilei Guillory testified. ‘Do you have an opinion as to whether Ricky Langley was mentally ill at the time he killed your child Jeremy?’ she was asked.
‘I feel like Ricky Langley has cried out for help,’ she said, ‘and the system has failed him. I feel like he is sick… And even though I can hear my child’s death cry, I too, can hear Ricky Langley cry for help.’
The production first appeared in Melbourne, then following its extraordinary success in London, Reprieve took it to the Edinburgh Festival where it enjoyed 4 star reviews and good audience figures. BBC Radio 4 Drama also commissioned it for broadcast, and the radio play won a Sony Award in 2007.
A selection of reviews for Lorilei, A Meditation on Loss:
‘Incredible… that most unusual of things, a space for reflection in the midst of impassioned debate’ Evening Standard
‘This is an extraordinary evening: the story of an American woman who fought to save her son’s murderer from execution’ The Guardian
‘Anna Galvin, as Lorilei, is a tour de force of restraint’ The Times
‘Tom Wright’s version of these actual events presents humanity at its most degraded and most merciful’ Time Out
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