Susan Denise Atkins, also known by the moniker Sexy Sadie, is one of the more notorious characters connected with Charles Manson and the Manson ‘Family’ murders, Atkins has been portrayed in more than half a dozen different films and television programs over the years, most likely because she claimed in court, to have killed pregnant actor Sharon Tate and confessed to fellow inmates in prison she tasted Tate’s blood in the process.

Partying with Manson by Stephen Sewell is wryly billed as ‘True Crime a go-go’ possibly because the play evokes a time and place in history that feels unsettlingly familiar to now, when one needs to look forensically close to discern what is real and what is fake, and marketing is everything. 

As explosive, flashy, scene changes whip along it’s a surreal, colourful pageant Atkins delivers, done with such relish these sleight of hand transitions in costume and set (very effectively designed by Karla Urizar) attempt to distract the eye, in the same way a magician does. Under the right lighting (Martin Kinnane), savagely ripped curtains don’t look blood red, cheap knock-off fashion looks expensive and glamorously inviting.  

Sewell’s layered theatrical writing is devilishly well directed by Kim Hardwick who balances suitably illustrating actions with the clever narrative delivered by Helen O’Connor as Susan in a tour-de-force performance that has her dancing through death, spellbinding the audience and seducing them into a dangerous sense of security. 

O’Connor shimmies between true-confessional Susan, maniacal hedonist Susan and put-the-knife-down Susan with relentless glee. Blame shifting one moment, embroidering reality the next, skipping over facts to fictionalise herself as if the audience were one of the many parole boards the real Atkins tried to convince of her innocence but failed.  

The real Susan Atkin’s various testimonies were considered unreliable in court, because she changed her story so frequently. In Sewell’s chilling one person play, Atkins confesses she killed Sharon Tate, then blazingly entertains us to a point where we could probably lay blame for her misguided crime elsewhere. Five evocative, dangerously woke, stars.