[NEohioPAL] Rave CJN Review of CRIMES OF THE HEART at Actors' Summit

[Neil Thackaberry]

*‘Crimes’ captures the heart at Actors’ Summit*


 Published: Friday, May 7, 2010 1:08 AM EDT

Reviewed by FRAN HELLER
Contributing Writer

The Magrath sisters of Hazlehurst, Miss., are having a bad day.

Lenny, the eldest, is celebrating her 30th birthday alone; middle sister
Meg’s promising singing career has stalled; and Babe, the youngest, is out
on bail after shooting her husband in the stomach because she “didn’t like
his looks.”

In a lesser playwright’s hands, this would be the stuff of kitchen sink
melodrama.

But in Beth Henley’s touching and big-hearted comedy “Crimes of the Heart,”
the play keeps the humanity and hilarity in perfect balance. The fine
production at Actors’ Summit is beautifully directed by MaryJo Alexander,
the theater’s co-artistic director. It runs through May 16.

“Crimes of the Heart” was Henley’s first professionally produced play and
her best. It won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critic’s
Circle Award. Drawing on the tradition of Southern Gothic writers, Henley
mines the charming eccentricity of her loveable characters, finding humor in
the macabre. Like Chekhov’s classic “The Three Sisters,” “Crimes” centers on
a trio of dysfunctional siblings for whom life is a series of heartbreaks
and disappointments.

All the action takes place in the kitchen of the family home, where the
sisters have gathered to await news of their granddaddy, who lies terminally
ill in the hospital. Alexander’s roomy kitchen sets just the right tone as
the meeting place where everyone convenes.

As the play begins, Lenny is trying to light a candle on a chocolate chip
cookie while singing happy birthday to herself. Spiteful cousin Chick
arrives, newspaper in hand, to dwell on the attempted murder charge against
Babe. Then comes Doc, who informs Lenny that her horse, which Doc has been
boarding on his farm, was struck by lightning the night before and died.

Next to burst upon the scene is Meg, who abandoned ex-boyfriend Doc five
years prior for a futile stab at Hollywood and a singing career. Upon
returning home, Meg is determined to find the best lawyer in town for Babe,
but the best lawyer in town is Babe’s husband, whom she shot. Last to appear
is Babe, just released on bail.

All the sisters are damaged goods, the result of their father’s abandonment
and their mother’s suicide while growing up. Henley’s compassion for her
neurotic, wacky characters makes them feel completely real.

Diane Mull is excellent as the dowdy, repressed and permanently unhappy
Lenny, resigned to spinsterhood, which she blames on an undeveloped ovary
and her inability to bear children. Lenny simmers with envy and resentment
as the sole caregiver of their granddaddy, who took them in after their
mother killed the family cat and herself.

Constance Thackaberry is perfect as the prodigal Meg, whose outrageous
behavior and promiscuity mask her fragile psyche. Eager to escape the
stifling confines of her hometown, Meg had convinced Doc to ride out
Hurricane Camille for the thrill of it (rather than evacuate), and then she
abruptly left him for California.

Jennifer Walker is first-rate as the flaky, childlike Babe Botrelle, who,
after shooting her husband, blithely makes a pitcher of lemonade while he
lies bleeding on the floor. Lonely, love-starved, and the victim of an
abusive spouse, Babe tells Meg about her affair with a 15-year-old black
boy. “I didn’t know you were a liberal,” says Meg, to which Babe replies:
“I’m not a liberal; I’m a democratic,” eliciting loud laughter. Such
ingenuously drawn funny lines perfectly illuminate these loopy, colorful
characters.

The actors playing the sisters are equally terrific in tandem, thanks to
director Alexander, who keeps them moving and completely engaged with one
another. Hugging and laughing in one instance and at each other’s throats in
the next, the siblings fully capture their complex three-way relationship:
the ties that bind and the conflicts that drive them apart. The acting is so
naturalistic, it is as if these characters have truly known each other all
their lives.

Subsidiary roles are equally well-defined, beginning with Mary Mahoney as
Chick Boyle, the mean-spirited, gossipy cousin who takes particular delight
in the girls’ misfortunes. Peter Voinovich is the amiable Doc, still smitten
with Meg despite the fact that she was responsible for shattering his
chances of ever becoming a real doctor when his leg got crushed during the
hurricane. Keith E. Stevens is ideal as Barnette Lloyd, the awkward and
moonstruck young lawyer defending Babe. Barnette has a personal vendetta
against Babe’s crooked politician husband and a crush on his client ever
since she sold him a cake at a bake sale many years ago.

With a running time of two-and- a-half hours (including two inter-
missions), the character-driven “Crimes” is a talky three-act play that
could easily stall under the weight of its own wordiness. That it mostly
doesn’t is entirely owing to Alexander’s airtight direction and an ensemble
that doesn’t skip a beat. Only in the second act are there moments when the
play sags as more of the family’s dirty laundry is aired.

The Southern accents are just right without being overdone, adding to the
play’s punch and authenticity.

Like the best of comedy, playwright Henley brings us to the brink of tears
then quickly retreats behind a curtain of laughter. This memorable play and
production lingered sweetly and laughingly all the way home from Hudson.

WHAT: “Crimes of the Heart”

WHERE: Actors’ Summit, 86 Owen Brown St., Hudson

WHEN:  Through May 16

TICKETS & INFO: 330-342-0800 or www.actorssummit.org
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