Crimes of the Heart
March 26 - April 19, 2009
Thursday - Saturday at 8 pm
Sunday at 2 pm
Reviewed March 26 by Brad Hathaway

A dark comedy of sisters gathered to support each other
 in grief and scandal
Running time 2:45 - two intermissions
tickets $15 - $20 ($5 for seniors on Sundays)

Beth Henley's Pulitzer Prize winning dark comedy about sisters gathering together in support of one of their number who just shot her husband accelerates throughout its three acts to hit an emotional release one might not expect in a grief-based story: laughter. The comedy of it all escalates as more and more big and small tragedies in the lives of the family are revealed. In Henley's view, the release of tensions for a family under pressure often comes through laughter - or at least an attack of the giggles. The reason Henley's play has had such success is that she struck on a little-acknowledged fact of life, one known so well by many people who have shared a loss or a time of trouble within that unique support group that is composed of siblings. Laughter is therapeutic and real and in no way demeaning to the departed or the troubled. Indeed, as act three shows here, the laughter can be a bonding experience of immense value not only to the troubled, but, if she's around, to the trouble bringer.

Storyline: Three sisters gather in their childhood home in small Hazlehurst, Mississippi on the day that one of them is arrested for shooting her husband, another heads off on a date with a married man who used to be her boyfriend and the other suffers the pangs of approaching spinsterhood as no one seems to recall that it is her thirtieth birthday. Add a fatal stroke that befalls their grandfather and the emotions spill out in laughter as a defense against uncontrollable tears.

Henley's play followed an unusual path to success. Zina Bleck and Herb Tax found in their research when they mounted a version of the play a few years ago that it was the first play ever to win the Pulitzer Prize before being produced on Broadway. It had been produced at a number of regional theaters, most notably at the Humana Festival of New American Plays at the Actors' Theatre of Louisville. It went on to a Broadway mounting that earned a Tony Award nomination for best play. Henley was also nominated for an Oscar for the best screenplay when the story was filmed with Diane Keaton, Jessica Lang and Sissy Spacek as the sisters.

Shelby Sours plays the eldest, the one who has remained at home to care for their grandfather. She faces her thirtieth birthday with a sense of dread, but Sours is good at showing some of the girlish giddiness that Henley had the character retaining at least through her twenties. Melissa Graves is the middle sister who has come home from a failed effort to become a star in Hollywood just in time to share her sibling's troubles. She has something of the sardonic edge of one who has had too many doors slammed in her face and shows the lack of maturity which is plaguing her character's effort to succeed at something - anything. The youngest is the source of the troubles that start the evening off. Sonia Justl is just as bubbly as Henley wrote as she tries desperately to hold on to the fiction that her attempt to murder her husband was no big thing.

The supporting characters can be effective as well. Genevieve James is the most fun as a cousin whose main role in the piece may be to help deliver some of the history of the family so the audience can understand the events on stage, but her energy level elevates the character to a more interesting level. Jonathan Lee Taylor is good as the youthful attorney defending the youngest sister against charges of attempted murder, but Mark Ludwick doesn't do much with the role of the married man the middle sister takes up with on her first night back home.

Written by Beth Henley. Directed by Patricia Foreman. Design: Noel Greer (set) Patricia Foreman and Anna Louise Gionfriddo (costumes) Alejandro Rosales (properties) Nick Ryckert (lights) Patricia Foreman (sound) Ray Gniewek (photography) Kathi Gollwitzer (stage manager). Cast: Melissa Graves, Genevieve James, Sonia Justl, Mark Ludwick, Shelby Sours, Jonathan Lee Taylor.