Iconic provocateur and musician Torquil Campbell’s True Crime has been hailed as “vivid...funny...frightening...his performance is astonishing” (National Post). The show plays at the Arts Club’s Goldcorp Stage at the BMO Theatre Centre from January 31 to February 24. Campbell will follow his performance of True Crime on Friday, February 15, with a DJ set.
True Crime is about Christian Gerhartsreiter (aka Clark Rockefeller), a con man of the highest order, now serving a near-life sentence in a California state prison. And Torquil Campbell (of the band Stars) wants to try him on for size.
When Campbell learned that Clark Rockefeller was arrested for kidnapping his own daughter in 2009, he recognized him from a 1993 episode of Unsolved Mysteries. At that time, Rockefeller was going by the name of Christopher Chichester and was wanted in connection to the disappearance of two people from California. Inspired by his own physical resemblance to Rockefeller and a lifelong interest in true crime stories, Campbell turned the case into a one-man show. Campbell tells the story of visiting and interviewing the con man in prison, which inspired some of the songs that underscore the show.
Campbell said, “This all happened because I became obsessed with the idea of this man who was very much like me, living a life of such perversion and such peril. I thought, what if we switched places? What if the artist left his personal morality behind and gave into his aesthetic obsession? I love the romance of crime—that’s a Morrissey lyric—and I love the moment when someone decides to do something terrible. I think Rockefeller just might be an artist, and that really frightens me.”
January 31 – February 24, 2019
Goldcorp Stage at the BMO Theatre Centre
SHOWTIMES
Tue–Thu at 7:30 PM, Fri & Sat at 8 PM, Wed at 1:30 PM, and Sat & Sun at 2 PM
Tickets from $29 at artsclub.com or the Arts Club Box Office at 604.687.1644
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