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Crimes of the Heart |
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Author: by Beth Henley
Reviewer: David Roberts for Theatre Reviews Limited |
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Second Stage's production of Beth Henley's "Crimes Of The Heart" is deeper, darker, more delicious than the original 1981 production or the 1986 movie based on the play. Garry Hynes has uncovered Henley's skill at unearthing the inherent pain at the heart of the human existence. And director Hynes knows how to get her actors to play with that pain like a cat plays with a catnip mouse, both wanting its essence and yet frightened of its intoxicating power.
Surrounded by Thomas Lynch's Norman Rockwell set, bathed in Rui Rita's shadow-less light, and dressed to the southern nines by Susan Hilferty, Garry Hynes' cast showcases just about every crime/passion of the human heart imaginable: love, indifference, jealousy, loneliness, abuse, rage, homicide, and unspeakable joy. This is an ensemble cast whose comings and goings from the family homestead are as carefully orchestrated as the unconscious mind's journeys into the heart.
  
But at the core of this birthday-party-gone-haywire is a maelstrom of a secret which Beth Henley discloses to the audience layer upon layer. There is considerable darkness behind the exteriors of time, place, and character. When Meg (Amy Ryan) says, "Daddy was such a bastard" and the audience sees the subtle (but knowing) look pass between her and Babe (Mary Catherine Garrison) we know intuitively that these are sisters who experienced the unspeakable horror of abuse at the hand of their father (with their mother's full knowledge).
The program credits Donald DiNicola with "original music." Missing is a credit for the music the audience hears most: "Promised Land" from the 1835 "The Southern Harmony." The words of the refrain are "I am bound for the promised land, I am bound for the promised land; oh, who will come and go with me? I am bound for the promised land."
This promised land is no pie-in-the-sky venue of eternal rest. The promised land for Babe, Lenny (Enid Graham), and Meg is their ultimate release from the psychic meltdown caused by parental abuse (and other family secrets many of which will die with the demise of "old granddaddy). This journey to safety is aided and abetted by the likes of Doc Porter (Talmadge Lowe), the attorney Barnett (Jason Butler Harner), and the nightmare cousin Chick (Julia Murney).
All dismembered parts of one soul aching to be whole, these characters become perhaps more real than we would wish them to be. And as we permit them to become flesh for us, we have the opportunity to first rip our own "houses" apart and then reassemble them memory by memory, feeling by feeling until we can sing without shame "Happy Birthday" to the many new persons finally at rest in a variety of promised lands.
Reviewed on Wednesday April 18, 2001
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By Beth Henley. Directed by Garry Hynes. Sets by Thomas Lynch; costumes by Susan Hilferty; lights by Rui Rita; original music and sound by Donald DiNicola; production stage manager, Kelley Kirkpatrick. Presented by 2econd Stage Theatre (Carole Rothman, Artistic Director; Mark Linn-Kaker 2001 Season Artistic Director; Carol Fishman, Managing Director; Alexander Fraser, Executive Director) at Second Stage Theatre, 307 West 43rd Street between 8th and 9th Avenues through May 13th. Performance schedule: Tuesday at 8:00 p.m.; Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.; Thursday and Friday at 8:00 p.m.; Saturday at 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.; Sunday at 3:00 p.m. Tickets at $35.00-$50.00 can be purchased by calling (212) 246-4422.
WITH: Mary Catherine Garrison (Babe), Enid Graham (Lenny), Jason Butler Harner (Barnett), Talmadge Lowe (Doc), Julia Murney (Chick), and Amy Ryan (Meg).
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