Miss Borden

I have heard this little double couplet poem since childhood, and have always been terrified by it, so, if I see a story depicted about accused murderess Lizzie Borden of Fall River, Massachusetts, I expect two people to end up corpses, her stepmother and her father. In the new musical by Katrina Wood Spindle City: The Lizzie Borden Musical, now playing at the Secret Rose Theatre, only her father's murder is enacted. But... Lizzie loved her father, in spite of his intolerable business tactics, and... despised her money-hungry stepmother. Does this omission of her murder from the retelling of the infamous story make any sense? Hardly. But that's just one of the problems plaguing this uneven musical at the Secret Rose through November 5.