Playwright Beth Henley has built her career on eccentric Southern characters and dark humor, producing familiar titles such as The Miss Firecracker Contest. And with its current production of Crimes of the Heart, Studio Tenn gives us Henley at her finest, taking on themes of family dysfunction and setting the standard for Southern tragicomedies.
Premiering off-Broadway in 1980, the play would move to Broadway’s John Golden Theatre in November of 1981, earning four Tony nominations and winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. A star-studded film adaptation followed in 1986, featuring Sissy Spacek, Jessica Lange, Diane Keaton and Tess Harper.
Set in 1974, the story follows Lenny, Meg and Babe — the hapless Magrath sisters of Hazlehurst, Miss. — as they gather in their childhood home and wrestle with a complicated family history that includes their mother’s suicide. Lenny has stayed close to home all these years, caring for “Old Grandaddy,” who raised the girls after their mother’s death. Meg has just arrived back in town, and is trying to come to terms with her failed music career and questionable reputation. Meanwhile, Babe is having an especially bad day — she’s just shot her abusive husband, admitting that she “just didn’t like his stinking looks.” It’s a crazy set-up. And, to be fair, certain plot points have not aged particularly well — including Babe’s questionable romantic entanglement. But Director Denice Hicks keeps the action humming along, striking a believable balance between the often goofy humor and genuine heartache.
As the play opens, we find Lenny alone in the kitchen on her 30th birthday, struggling to light a single candle on what appears to be a rather stale cookie. It’s a bit of a slow burn (pardon the pun), but the scene goes a long way in establishing Lenny’s sad, solitary life as Old Grandaddy’s “nursemaid.”
Katie Bruno is excellent as Lenny, allowing past injustices – including everything from a shrunken ovary to the extra jingle bells Meg wore in her petticoats as a child – to simmer just below the surface before finally bubbling over in Act II. Mariah Parris provides a striking contrast as Meg – calm, cool, and yet clearly troubled. Parris reveals much of her character in quiet moments, taking a long drag off her cigarette or dodging Lenny’s knowing looks. Delaney Keith is just as strong as the fiery, but fragile Babe. Keith brings marvelous energy to each scene, whether manically mixing up a pitcher of lemonade or defiantly playing her saxophone.
And Taryn Pray is picture-perfect as Chick Boyle, the Magrath sisters’ overbearing cousin. Painted, polished and overflowing with sugary self-righteousness, Pray makes the most of each juicy line. Watching her scramble into a new pair of L’eggs pantyhose while digging up various skeletons from the Magrath family closet is a special treat. And when she finally gets her comeuppance, the opening-night audience cheered.
While the ladies rightly take center stage throughout most of the evening, there’s ample support from Jonah Jackson (terrific as Doc Porter, a soft-spoken Southern gent and Meg’s former flame) and Matthew Benenson Cruz (charming as Barnette Lloyd, the earnest young lawyer who has his own reasons for taking on Babe’s defense).
Andrew Cohen’s scenic design draws us into all the drama with the quintessential Southern kitchen – complete with retro pink linoleum, a slamming screen door and a sweet little curtain beneath the kitchen sink. Darren E. Levin’s evocative lighting provides plenty of tender, moonlit moments, and Devon Renee Spencer’s vintage costumes help capture both the era and each distinctive character.
Contemplating heavy issues of life and death, broken dreams and isolation, Crimes of the Heart offers no easy answers. But even with all the disappointments and ruined dreams, the Magrath sisters somehow remind us that life is still worth living, even on the “real bad days.”