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The Magrath sisters are having a bad day. In Beth Henley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Crimes of the Heart,” now on offer at TheatreWorks, these three siblings from small-town Mississippi suffer a series of setbacks, losses and indignities that make the lives of their Chekhovian counterparts seem rosy by comparison.
Eldest sister Lenny is turning 30, though her birthday brings only a re-gifted box of chocolates and the news that her beloved horse, Billy Boy, has been killed by lightning.
Middle sister Meg returns from California, where her dream of a singing career has turned into a job at a dog-food company, only to discover that her old flame, Doc Porter, has just moved back with a Yankee wife and two half-Yankee kids.
Meanwhile, Babe, the youngest of the Magrath girls, has just been released on bail after shooting her husband (a state senator and the town’s most powerful lawyer) for reasons that she cannot reveal without inviting even more scandal for herself and her family.
Add to this the lingering shadow of their mother’s suicide two decades earlier plus the hospitalization of the grandfather who raised the girls after their mother’s death and you have the makings of a very bad day indeed.
But despite the parade of woes that Henley heaps on her heroines, “Crimes of the Heart” is a comedy — a decidedly black one, certainly, but a comedy nonetheless — and TheatreWorks’s production, directed by Giovanna Sardelli, charges hard for the laughs.
Therese Plaehn hits all the right notes as Lenny: dutiful, frustrated, frazzled and chronically unsure of herself. Hers is the show’s strongest performance, and the one that knits the others together. From the moment, early on, when a near-hysterical Lenny, alone in the kitchen, makes wishes on a single birthday candle that she lights and relights for herself, we know we’re in good hands.
Sarah Moser’s Meg is a bit aloof — fitting for the middle sister who left town to chase Hollywood dreams — with frequent flashes of a rebellious nature that has yet to be beaten down by her professional failure.
Lizzie O’Hara is unfailingly funny as would-be murderer Babe, deadpanning her initial explanation for the shooting: “I didn’t like his looks.” On the other hand, her matter-of-fact callousness and lack of evident vulnerability keep the audience at arm’s length, preventing us from fully sympathizing with Babe’s past trauma or her current plight.
All three of these actresses bring tremendous energy to their roles, whether flying across the room in fits of panic or inspiration, or devolving into demented laughter when one last tragedy pushes them beyond the limits of conventional grief. Sardelli has given them plenty of movement to keep the scenes from growing stale, and designer Andrea Bechert has created a spacious and interactive (not to mention drop-dead gorgeous) set — large kitchen, entry hall with stairs, and partial back porch — in which to play.
The three leads are joined by Laura Jane Bailey as the Magraths’ cousin Chick, Timothy Redmond as Doc Porter, and Joshua Marx as Barnette Lloyd, the very green lawyer hired to defend Babe. In addition to being a whirlwind of energy herself, Bailey serves as a one-woman Greek chorus, giving full voice to all of the whispered gossip and disapproval of the small-town South. Redmond plays it close to the vest with Doc’s motivations, making his interaction with Lenny all the more intriguing.
Marx is clearly a talented actor, more than capable of matching the energy of O’Hara and the others. His portrayal of Babe’s lawyer/new love interest, though, goes astray from the beginning. Marx seems so intent on landing laughs that his Barnette Lloyd becomes almost a caricature: excitable verging on manic, over-confident and inexplicably nerdy. Because we are unable to relate to him as a real person, his sacrifice in the second half of the show fails to move either us or, apparently, Babe, turning it into a cheap deus ex machina instead.
Ultimately, Marx’s performance is emblematic of the underlying tonal problem with Sardelli’s approach to the play, an approach that favors laughs over more complex emotional reactions.
Yes, most of our heroines’ problems have been resolved favorably by the end of the show, and yes, that is the classical definition of a comedy. But while “Crimes of the Heart” is undeniably a comedy, it is not just a comedy. The humor in Henley’s script is not the result of tragedy being avoided or overcome. Nor is it humor meant to divert or distract us from the ugliness of life. Rather, it is humor as a direct reaction to tragedy, humor that would make no sense without a simultaneous acknowledgment of sorrow. This duality is present early in the TheatreWorks production but by the end of the show, the purely comic impulse has won out, leaving us with a feel-good portrait of perseverance and sisterly love. This is all well and good, but the production misses an opportunity to impart a more nuanced denouement and a more lasting impression.
Tonal issues aside, though, this “Crimes of the Heart” is still a success — a showcase for flawless production values and exceptional comic acting.
Freelance writer Kevin Kirby can be emailed at penlyon@peak.org.
What: “Crimes of the Heart”
Where: Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St., Mountain View
When: Through Feb. 5 (performance times vary; see online for schedule)
Cost: $19-$80
Info: Go to TheatreWorks.
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