Review: Theatrical CRIMES OF THE HEART-less at Village Theatre

In Beth Henley's play "Crimes of the Heart", currently playing at Village Theatre, the character of Meg says, "To talk about our lives. It's an important human need." Well an important theatrical need is for the characters in a play to listen to each other and not just wait for their next bit but there was very little listening going on in the show I saw last night and that was just one of the issues that sapped the heart right out the show making this Pulitzer Prize winning play feel more a sitcom.

The press release of the show describes it as follows. "It's 1974 in rural Mississippi, and Babe Magrath (Sydney Andrews) is having a bad day. She didn't like the way her husband looked, and so...she shot him. Needless to say, he's not too happy about it. Now out on bail, Babe reunites with her two sisters to make sense of their most recent misfortunes. Meg (Brenda Joyner) is back from a failed career in the music industry. Lenny (Rhonda J. Soikowski) is lamenting her forgotten 30th birthday. Their mother is dead, and so is the cat, and so too, nearly, is Granddaddy-not to mention their horse, who has just been hit by lightning. But not all is bad, and the sisters find plenty to laugh about as they navigate the troubled world they may or may not have brought upon themselves." But they might as well have followed it up with "and hijinks ensue!"

What director Kathryn Van Meter and the cast seem to forget is that even with all of the humor this play has written into it, there's also a ton of heart and subtext of these women in the south in the 70's. So when a woman takes action against an abusive husband, that's a big deal. When a white woman wants to have an affair with a black man, that's a big deal. Even when a woman takes out a personal ad, that's a big deal. But with all of the big deals around them, none of them seem to have any urgency about these things and that takes the stakes right out. And without those stakes all that's left are the jokes and lines they're treating like jokes reducing this tragic story to a goofy romp.

The actors in this production are some of the best in town and I've seen them do so much better but here they all felt like they were in different shows. Andrews just stayed manic and bubbly and Joyner acted like she was lost and going by the seat of her pants which gave me no insight into what was going on inside these women. And Soikowski kept changing intentions from one line to the next for no reason so I'm not even sure who she was. Robert Bergin as Babe's lawyer Barnette just seemed like a big puppy dog bounding after Babe which lent little to his creditability or depth. And the clearest characters, and therefore the most likable and relatable, were the two smallest roles of Angela DiMarco as the sisters' cousin Chick and Orion Bradshaw as Meg's former boyfriend Doc. And when the two smallest roles, one of whom is the antagonist of the piece, are the most likable then there's something very wrong.

When all is said and done they took this beautiful play and turned it into an episode of "Reba". And so with my three letter rating system I give Village Theatre's "Crimes of the Heart" a very disappointed NAH. But if you're just in it for some laughs and you think that a woman who's so desperate to escape from a loveless and abusive marriage that she takes up a forbidden romance with an underage black boy until she's ultimately forced to shoot her husband is funny then this sitcom might be right up your alley.

"Crimes of the Heart" performs at Village Theatre in Issaquah through February 28th before moving to their Everett location running March 4th through the 27th. For tickets or information contact the Issaquah box office at 425-392-2202 or the Everett box office at 425-257-8600 or visit them online at www.villagetheatre.org.

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