You All Know Me, I’m Jack Ruby! (rating 4/5)
This may be a one-man show but it embraces many characters from one of the most infamous incidents in US history. Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby, or Rubenstein, gunned down the alleged assassin of President John Kennedy in full view of live TV cameras, thus adding another twist to the story and sparking more conspiracy theories.
Clifford Barry, writer and performer, has worked in in theatre, film and TV for 30 years and his experience is evident in his telling of Ruby’s innermost thoughts, partly through the imagined conversations with his prison guard.
He’s done his research and given us a three-dimensional view of Ruby, a man born into a disturbed Chicago family and who took the truth behind his killing of Lee Harvey Oswald to the grave.
Barry has a few theories of his own, pointing to Kennedy’s successor Lyndon B Johnson. The drama draws on evidence from the Warren Commission, Ruby’s trial and messages that seeped from the Dallas County Jail.
Ruby comes across as part hero-seeking avenger and partly as a deluded individual troubled by his own Jewish past.
Barry continues to grow into a role he has made his own. It’s a compelling performance.
The Space, North Bridge (50 mins), until 18 August
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