Lemons Unripe For The Acting: A Theatre Review of Crimes of the Heart
In the middle of cornfields in Northern Illinois lies one of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy’s best-kept secrets: tucked away in D wing, a gem of a theater features quarterly productions by the IMSA Drama Club (IDC). Under the direction of Julie Dowling, IDC recently (February 17, 2017 to February 20, 2017, this review is about the February 20, 2017 performance) featured Crimes of the Heart by Beth Henley. The small but intimate theater illuminated a lively yellow kitchen and set the scene for some good ol’, Southern style kitchen sink drama. And so unfurls the story of the three disjointed MaGrath sisters; the eldest, Lenny MaGrath, played by Jeni Petrillo; middle child, Meg MaGrath, who had a “loose reputation in high school,” played by Alyssa Wilke; and Babe, “prettiest and most perfect one of the three sisters” (15), played by Linnea Lee-Brown. The play opens with misfortunes falling left and right on each of the sisters. Lenny’s beloved horse “Billy Boy died” (10), Meg has quit her singing career and now “[pays] cold storage bills for a dog food company” (16), and Babe husband, the “richest and most powerful man in all of Hazelhurst” (15) suddenly becomes abusive and hates Babe. The three sisters who had not been together since Hurricane Camille 5 years ago were brought together on the account that Babe had shot her husband claiming she “just didn’t like his stinking looks!” (19) and faces prospects of going “on to jail” (22). With all the baggage and past grudges that each sister brings, let’s just say that things get… complicated. The three sisters joined by their obnoxious cousin Chick played by understudy Tara Parkman; Meg’s now married ex-beau, Doc Porter played by Ethan Heilman; and a “nice-looking” young lawyer Barnette Lloyd played by Zack Ungerleider, talk about their past while cracking pecans, confront each other about taking “one little bite out of each piece of [Lenny’s birthday] candy”, and chase each other around like mad hens.
Crimes of the Heart is a very interesting choice for the IMSA Drama Club. This play is not only challenging for a high school company to perform but also difficult for a modern audience to understand. Focusing on the latter issue, the 1981 Pulitzer drama winner is somewhat outdated. Written in 1978 and set in 1974, elements of the play that were important at the time have lost their impact. For an example, Meg’s shock that “Doc married a yankee” (17) and her disgust that “god then his kids must be half-Yankee” (17) is a lost reference as the only Yankees that high school students are familiar with are the signs stamped on baseball hats. Furthermore, the final minutes of Act 1 were so outdated that Dowling went as far to change the script. Willie Jay, originally 15 in the play was turned 17 on Monday night, making his and Babe’s relationship no longer a felony. Meg’s following lines, “But even so- fifteen. And he’s a black boy; a colored boy; a negro… I didn’t even know you were a liberal” (30–31) were also cut from the performance. 1974 was a time of great civil unrest especially for the African American community and it appears that Henley wanted to reference these tensions. However, while cutting this provocative line toned down the racism of the play, making it more suitable for a young audience, it also unemphasized the controversy of biracial relationships of the time.
Even with its outdated quirks, (I mean who still uses telegrams?), Crimes of the Heart is still largely popular to such an extent that Tara Parkman, part of the play reading committee “was adamant that Crimes of the Heart should be shown at IMSA”. Crimes of the Heart redeems itself with its golden heart. At the end, Crimes of the Heart proves that with your crazy sisters y you, all the troubles in life are only ever just a piece of cake. This message was put in bold and underlined, as instead of just a simple cake celebration, Dowling rewrote the big finale as a cake fight. A BIG cake fight with 2’ by 3’ (yes, you read that right, 2 feet by 3 feet cake and yes, that is a lot of cake). A cake-into-hair-and-down-the-shirt-fading-into-Cyndi-Lauper’s-classic-“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” kind of fight. Even though the sisters’ futures remain uncertain (will Babe end up in prison? Will Meg have a chance to become a rising star? Will Lenny finally find love?) the trio is portrayed as admirable, courageous women who have braved the odds with their sisterly love.
However, this golden heart was not always felt throughout the play. Crimes of the Heart is a play largely based on the emotions and relationships of adult characters that is difficult for the young actors to understand and portray. Even though all the actors and actresses mastered their southern accents, their lack of life experiences and deep understanding of the characters ultimately lead the audience to wonder if something was missing. Imagine this; you are making lemonade and you follow all the instructions perfectly. However, if your lemons are not ripe, then the “lemonade” may be very tasty sugar water, but it will not be lemonade. Similarly (although not to this extent), IDC actors and actresses lacked the emotions and feelings to convey the full persona of their characters to the audience, draining the essence of the play.
While Meg and Babe whose emotions are always on one end of the spectrum or another, it is more difficult to pinpoint Lenny. The play opens with Lenny trying to stick a candle into a crumbling cookie on her forgotten 30th birthday. In 1974, the median marriage age was 21 and Lenny is not only 9 years overdue, but also unable to have children on account of her “shrunken ovary” (23) and insecure as she has always been outshone, looks wise, by her two younger sisters. Furthermore, it appeared that most Southern women of the time usually did something like join the “Ladies’ Social League” (7) like Chick and Doc Porter’s mother or become a housewife like Babe. Thus, the fact that Lenny is not married is a burden both financially and socially. However, during the performance, Petrillo did not seem so sad about not being married. This decreases the emphasis that not being married is a big issue and that it’s a big deal that Lenny can still survive through it all.
Additionally, in the performance, Lenny is characterized as a pushover, constantly being pulled this way and that by Chick, and as gullible, believing whatever her sisters tell her about birthday wishes. However, the original script seems to suggest that Lenny is more worn out than anything and is gullible because she chose to carry on with all the responsibilities at home. Lenny cared for their grandfather to an extent by sacrificing bits of her life. She rolled out the cot “so that [she] could be close and hear him at night if he needed something” (14). Lenny even says that she feels burdened when she says, “All the responsibility keeps falling on my shoulders and I try to do what’s right” (13) and she feels so burdened that she wishes that “Old Granddaddy [someone she loves more than anyone else] would be put out of his pain” (55). Petrillo, who conveyed a much more hopeful and youthful version of Lenny, did not depict this kind of tiredness and desperation. Petrillo, who is a young, sprightly sophomore, ended many of Lenny’s lines on an up note and walked around stage with a spring in her step. Petrillo’s Lenny seemed energetic and hopeful and not at all drained nor stressed, leaving the audience confused on exactly how much of a burden Lenny took on when staying home to take care of “Old Granddaddy” (55).
Chick is another character whose emotions are somewhat unrelatable for a high school cast. Parkman superficially does very well. The audience is keenly aware that Chick is a burr in the saddle due to Parkman’s imitated nasally pitch (although I’m sure her natural voice is quite lovely) and her never ending nagging. However, the relations between Chick and Meg and Babe are not fully fleshed out. It is apparent that Chick always blames her misfortunes on others, mostly the MaGrath sisters, attributes her strengths to “the way [she] was brought up” (8), and constantly refers to Meg as “cheap Christmas trash” (64). This coupled with her obsession with her physical appearance, from her trying to squeeze into XS petit stockings and blaming it on the company “skimping on the nylon” (7) to her constantly checking her makeup and hair in her pocket mirror, seems to imply that Chick was always jealous of Babe and especially Meg who had the popularity and looks she never had. Thus, Chick is insecure and her own life is a mess (she’s gained weight, her kids are eating paint)- frankly, she is jealous of Meg and Babe and this kind of relationship was never apparent in Parkman’s acting and reduces Chick as a character.
Finally, Doc Porter is a tricky, tricky man to play. Heilman did a good job acting as a gentleman to the MaGrath sisters, but did not carry the feelings of a man who has loved and lost and loved again. In the beginning, when Lenny confronts Doc about wanting to see Meg again even though Doc “gave up his medical career altogether” (41) and got a limp from staying in a hurricane with Meg. Doc responds with “Yeah Lenny, sad to say but I would [want to see Meg again]” (10). Heilman performs it with angst. He sounds resentful towards Lenny. In a later scene, it is revealed that Doc still deeply cares for Meg although not in a romantic way. Thus, that line should have been more hopeful, more yearning of seeing a woman that he could’ve married in another life. When Doc and Meg finally meet up after five years, the relationship seemed forced and when Doc and Meg are just supposed to “smile at each other” (50), it should’ve been the misty, nostalgic, look of a man who hasn’t seen his first love in years, not the smile of someone who wants to rekindle their relationship. The relationship between Meg and Doc is very delicate, with Doc evidently being a very special person since he was the one who made Meg sing again but not a romantic partner. The same kind of affection of love but not lust was not seen onstage leaving the audience confused as to the relationship between Meg and Doc.
While some emotions may have been left out of the performance, the set and production is meticulously staged. From the table with the mismatched chairs, evidence of the lonely life Lenny has been living, to the island where Babe makes pitcher upon pitcher of lemonade, to the cot where the MaGrath sisters guffawed over past pictures and memories, the kitchen area is perfectly reminiscent of a 1970’s era Southern house. The only flaw was that the oven is located behind the island and from my vantage point, I had no idea what Babe was doing during her suicide scene since I couldn’t see her. I could see that the characters themselves were carefully outfitted, as their different clothes and styles reflected on their personalities. Meg had on as much green eye shadow as humanly possible and wore a shorter, more flattering dress while Babe had these delicate, perfect curls and hair teased miles high with a more neutral dress. Lenny seemed to be dressed in distress jeans and a pajama shirt sans makeup, sans fashionable hairstyle.
Overall, while Crimes of the Heart may not be IDC’s magnum opus due to its complexity and exploration of grown up emotions, IDC proves its worth with its well-played performance of Crimes of the Heart. IDC’s actors and actresses may not be at the ripeness of lemons that Crimes of the Heart needs, but IDC has got the act of making lemonade down and you can be safe to say that I will be returning in the summer to catch the next play.
Works Cited
Henley, Beth. Crimes of the heart. New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1998. Print.
