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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: 24pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">‘Crimes’ captures the heart at Actors’ </span>Summit</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br style="" clear="all">
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Published:
Friday, May 7, 2010 1:08 AM EDT</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Reviewed
by FRAN HELLER<br>
Contributing Writer<br>
<br>
The Magrath sisters of Hazlehurst,
Miss., are having a bad day.<br>
<br>
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.”<br>
<br>
In a lesser playwright’s hands, this would be the stuff of kitchen sink
melodrama.<br>
<br>
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.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">“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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
The Southern accents are just right without being overdone, adding to the
play’s punch and authenticity.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
WHAT: “Crimes of the Heart”<br>
<br>
WHERE: Actors’ Summit,
86 Owen Brown St., Hudson<br>
<br>
WHEN: Through May 16<br>
<br>
TICKETS & INFO: 330-342-0800 or <a href="http://www.actorssummit.org/">www.actorssummit.org</a> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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