REVIEW: RUTHLESS at Arches Lane Theatre 3 - 29th June 2025

‘based on real people and real events, it gets right into your head and leaves you asking, what really happened’ ★★★

Ruthless is an interesting look at the “One-Lady-Trauma” that was Ruth Madoff, the wife of multi-billion dollar Wall Street fraudster Bernie Madoff.

We find out that her husband was the mastermind of the world’s largest ever Ponzi scheme, a fraud where early investors are paid off with the investment funds deposited by more recent investors. To those of you who are unfamiliar with this, it is like a certain famous politician’s recent bit-coin scam, where he and his associates made millions and hundreds of thousands off gullible MAGA supporters who lost all their money. These ‘Ponzi schemes’, like crypto currencies have been referred to as “crime-ridden scams” though little is ever done to reimburse the victims. Perhaps they are viewed as what in a war might be called collateral damage. In this case Ruth Madoff is clearly one and very possibly her son too, who committed suicide by hanging himself in front of his own child. There is little mention of or thought given to the harm done to the thousands of innocent investors except for the effect it has on the mind of the guilty. Although one does make a brief appearance late in the play.

Starting at a sedate crawl, the curtains are opened on the pill and alcohol fueled self pitying misery of Ruth’s last days. We are uncertain who she is talking to until we realize that this poor woman is leading a life of delusion. Is she alone? No, she is just the lonely victim. Everything in her life that meant anything has been taken away from her but her self-pity flies out of the window at the drop of a hat when the hunky Italian pizza delivery man rings the doorbell.

We are left wondering if she is really that damaged as from that point her self-pity turns into blame. Indeed, Emily Swain steers us through a journey of ever-changing moods and reflections of a woman whose life’s events have left her clearly disturbed.

Eventually moved to suicide she enters a state of hallucination or visit to heaven, depending on whichever belief you decide to adopt in your own life, where the truth of the matter is laid bare to her.

In reality, employees in fact stated “Ruthie runs all the books” a reference to her job as the bookkeeper of the family firm, which does rather point the finger of guilt or at least compliance in the fraud in her direction. And back in the play Ruthie is tormented with guilt at the accusation that she may well have been the driving factor that caused the whole fraud to happen in the first place.

Although the play is fiction, it is based on real people and real events and so gets right into your head and leaves you asking what really happened.  Although a whole range of reasons, excuses, blames, lies and bullshit were thrown at Ruthie by her lost family members and her own twisted mind, we in the audience may be left to figure it out for ourselves.

In the end it makes you want to go home and look up what really did happen or for the less interested, it leaves you guessing as to the truth about this weird sort of who-done-it type of mystery. Or if you feel less motivated you can take it just as it comes. 

Read LPT interview with the writer Roger Steinmann here

RUTHLESS

At Arches Lane Theatre (formerly The Turbine Theatre), Battersea

3 - 29 June

BOX OFFICE https://app.lineupnow.com/event/ruthless-by-roger-steinmann

Written and directed by Roger Steinman

Emily Swain as Ruth Madoc