|
Sibling rivalry. Suicide. Spouse abuse. Adultery. Attempted murder. Beth Henley threw all those hot topics and several others into the mix as she dissected a dysfunctional Southern family in "Crimes of the Heart." The play launched her career as a playwright in 1978 and won her the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1981. A film version of the story in 1986 starred Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange and Sissy Spacek. ‘Crimes of the Heart’
cast performs admirablyBy John Berger
jberger@starbulletin.comDirector Dennis Cannon and a remarkable cast do justice to Henley's story in all respects in a revival at Kennedy Theatre. The casting is perfect. The ensemble work is excellent and each individual is fully realized. The two couples that come together as the story plays out are also perfectly matched.
Although Henley's gently skewed and slightly comic vignette of life in the modern American South may seem somewhat exotic for Kennedy Theatre, Cannon explored somewhat similar turf with equal success when he directed "Laundry and Bourbon" and "Lone Star," a pair of James McLure one-acts, on the Main Stage in 1993.
"Crimes of the Heart" is set in a small town in Mississippi. The year is 1974, five years after Hurricane Camellia trashed the Gulf Coast, and Lenny Magrath is having the 30th birthday from hell.
It's trauma enough that she's 30 -- a milestone many people hit with a mix of anguish and despair. She's also single with nary a marital prospect in sight. Her social horizons have shrunk to the point where she sleeps in the kitchen to better watch over her ailing grandfather.
Ol' Granddaddy is hospitalized and sinking fast, and Lenny's baby sister, 24-year-old Babe Botrelle, has been arrested for shooting her socially prominent husband.
Babe's arrest has brought middle sister Meg rushing back from California and her career as a recording artist. Meg is tall, blond, beautiful and obliviously self-centered. To hear the sisters' snooty cousin Chick tell the story, Meg was also the town slut before heading to California.
With Meg back, the three sisters warily review their lives and consider new issues as they ponder Babe's fate.
Babe, petite and still something of a child-woman, claims that she shot her husband because she "didn't like his looks" and got tired of listening to him. She then tells of making herself some lemonade after the shooting, walking back to where her husband was lying, and asking him if he wanted a glass, too.
Babe finds an unlikely but passionate champion in young attorney Barnette Lloyd. It'll be Lloyd's first big criminal case, but he has reasons of his own to hate Babe's husband, and has already done much of the investigative digging necessary to bury him.
The other man on the scene is Meg's ex-boyfriend, handsome Doc Porter. He is now the proud father of two "half Yankee" children, but news of Meg's return brings him sniffing around after her.
And so the story plays out over a 24-hour period as Lenny, Meg and Babe wrestle with life and all the family baggage they've accumulated.
Natalie Mihana McKinney balances quiet desperation with dogged resilience in creating a memorable portrayal of Lenny, Lauren Marie Kepa'a's success at first establishing Babe as a child-woman becomes a fine foundation when deeper and possibly darker facets of Babe's character emerge, and Amy Jo Matsen is irresistible as Meg.
Rasa Radha Fournier does a great job early as comical cousin Chick. Fournier brought down the house as she struggled into a new pair of pantyhose on opening night.
Jeremy G. Pippin (Barnette Lloyd) excels in developing the shadings of character that make his young attorney a pivotal figure in key scenes. Scot Davis completes the cast with an effective performance as Meg's good-natured and vulnerable ex.
Despite the offbeat characters and the improbable twists and turns of their stories, "Crimes of the Heart" is not another sitcom-style hatchet job on the South. The characters are all a bit over the edge in one way or another, but in the end their story touches the heart in unexpected ways.
Presented by the University of Hawaii at Manoa Department of Theatre & Dance 'Crimes of the Heart'
Where: Kennedy Theatre
When: 8 p.m. today and tomorrow, and 2 p.m. Sunday
Tickets: $12 general; $9 for students, seniors, military and UH faculty; $7 for non-UH students; and $4 for UHM students with valid spring ID
Call: 956-7655
Click for online
calendars and events.
