Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Three eccentric sisters, a husband whos been shot, and a lawyer with a vendetta: the
recipe for a 30th birthday gone perfectly wrong. Family cruelty has never been more
casually dealt than in Beth Henleys Pulitzer Prize-winning Southern Gothic screwball
comedy. Ebullience abounds in the MaGrath home, even as this Mississippi family faces a
veritable heap of misfortune. Touching, tragic, and daffy, Crimes of the Heart is a darkly
comic family feud of epic proportions.
The Production
Who's Who
Children. Film: Fat Girls Cant Dance, Sponge. BFA from Otterbein College.
which he also produced. Regional: Shane in Take Me Out at the Human Race Theatre Co.
of Dayton, OH (nominated best supporting); and Carl in Lonely Planet at the Actors Theatre
in Grand Rapids, MI (nominated best actor). TV: Law and Order, Gossip Girl, All My
Children. He also writes and edits video and is currently doing all of these things for Thug
Passion the Series, available on Facebook.
Spacek and Sam Shepard. She also wrote the screenplay for Miss Firecracker starring Holly
Hunter and Tim Robbins. She wrote the screenplay for Nobodys Fool that starred Rosanna
Arquette and Eric Roberts, and co-wrote David Byrnes True Stories. Her television credits
include Surviving Love, a film for CBS starring Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen as well
as a teleplay for the PBS series, Trying Times, directed by Jonathan Demme. Ms. Henley
has the honor of serving as Theatre Arts Presidential Professor at LMU, Los Angeles. She is
a member of The Fellowship of Southern Writers and the Dramatist Guild.
Liesl Tommy (Director) Recent credits: The Piano Lesson by August Wilson (Yale Rep),
Ruined by Lynn Nottage (Oregon Shakespeare Festival, La Jolla Playhouse, Huntington
Theatre Company, Berkeley Rep). World Premieres: Peggy Picket Sees the Face of God by
Roland Schimmelpfennig (Luminato Festival, Toronto), Eclipsed by Danai Gurira (Yale
Rep, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and McCarter Theatre), The Good Negro by
Tracey Scott Wilson (The Public Theater, Sundance Theatre Institute, Dallas
Theater Center), A History of Light by Eisa Davis (the Contemporary American Theatre
Festival), Angelas Mixtape by Eisa Davis (Synchronicity Performance Group, New
Georges), A Stones Throw by Lynn Nottage, (Womens Project). Other credits: Yankee
Tavern, Stick Fly (CATF); A Christmas Carol (Trinity Rep); In the Continuum (Playmakers
Rep); Flight (City Theatre); Hydriotaphia, Camino Real (Trinity Rep/Brown
Consortium), Split Ends (La MAMA); Bus, Family Ties (Cristian Panaite Play Company) for
the Romania; Kiss Me! Festival; Misterioso 119 (Berkshire Theatre Festival, Act French
Festival/Lark Theatre); Adventures of Barrio Grrrl (Summer Play Festival). Upcoming
projects: The White Man A Complex Declaration of Love (Dansk Theatre, Denmark). Liesl
was awarded the NEA/TCG Directors Grant, the New York Theatre Workshop
Casting/Directing Fellowship. Liesl has taught and guest directed at Juilliard, Trinity
Rep/Brown Universitys MFA Directing Program and NYUs Tisch School of the Arts. She is
a native of Cape Town, South Africa.
Andromache Chalfant (Set Design) has designed scenery for theaters in New York City
and across the country including Playwrights Horizons, The Public Theater, The Vineyard,
The A.R.T, Minnesota Opera, Opera Omaha, and Arena Stage. Her most recent New York
credits are: El Gato Con Botas for The New Victory Theater and Bachelorette for Second
Stage Theater. Her collaborators in theater and opera include Mark Wing -Davey, Les
Waters, Doug Varone, Zelda Fichandler, Sarah Ruhl, Michael Sexton, Davis McCallum, Trip
Cullman, Moiss Kaufman and Blind Summit Theatre. MFA in design NYU/Tisch School of
the Arts.
Marion Williams (Costume Design) McCarter debut. New YorkJuilliard: Burn This,
Savage in Limbo; MCC; Mint: The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd; Womens Project. Off
BroadwayFilumena, The Moonlight Room, The Mystery of Attraction. InternationalLeipzig,
Germany: Turn of the Screw. RegionalBarrington Stage, Centerstage, Cincinnati Ballet,
Louisville Ballet; The Old Globe: Death of a Salesman; Playmakers: In the Continuum
(director Liesl Tommy), The Importance of Being Earnest, Opus, Doubt, Topdog/Underdog,
The Illusion, The Underpants, Yellowman, Proof, etc.; Round House, Sacramento: Tartuffe,
Amadeus, Taming of the Shrew, Othello; Shakespeare Theatre of NJ: Othello, Of Mice and
Men, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, The Cherry Orchard; Two River: The Glass Menagerie, 26
Miles, ReEntry, Barefoot in the Park; Williamstown. MFA University of Washington, Seattle;
2004 Princess Grace Award; 2007 PGF Grant Recipient.
Ann G. Wrightson (Lighting Design) Anns recent work includes: Fences, Huntington
Theatre; August: Osage County, Broadway, London, Sydney, and the national tour (Tony
nomination Best Lighting); Souvenir, Broadway; The Unmentionables, Yale Repertory; UP,
Steppenwolf Theatre; Gem of the Ocean and Radio Golf, Alliance Theatre. Past projects
include A Prayer for Owen Meany and Inana for Denver Theatre Center; 10 seasons at the
Oregon Shakespeare Festival; and projects for ACT, Cleveland Playhouse and Long
Wharf. Current work features: The Diary of Anne Frank at Indiana Repertory and In at the
Pioneer Theatre in Utah. Awards: 2009 IRNE Award for Best Lighting for Fences at
Huntington Theatre, Backstage Garland Award for Magic Fire at OSF and an AUDELCO
nomination.
Karin Graybash (Sound Design) has designed the sound for a number of productions at
McCarter Theatre, including Mrs. Warrens Profession, Polk County, The Mad 7, and Emily
Manns A Seagull in the Hamptons. Her other design credits include: Arena Stage, Berkeley
Repertory Theatre, Walnut Street Theatre, Two River Theater Company, Dallas Theater
Center, Yale Repertory Theatre, Folger Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, and
Kenny Leons True Colors Theatre Company. Karin is the original live sound consultant for
the award-winning multi-media production Freedom Rising at the National Constitution
Center. She is also the Sound Supervisor for the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers
University.
Andromache Chalfant, set designer for McCarters upcoming production of Crimes of the
Heart, has been designing whole houses lately, even though the play takes place in just one
room. It might seem odd to do so much thinking about rooms of a house that you wont see
on stage, she says, but you can look at hundreds of layouts for old homes before you find
one that really lets you get inside the logic of the house.
Setting the whole play in a kitchen is great because its a central recognizable element,
Chalfant says. But it creates a challenge to fill the stage believably. One way to address
that is to think about the rest of the house. How do you make the house live in the
transitionsthe thresholds between the kitchen and the rest of the house or the rest of the
town? What do we see when we look through those doors?
I dont know if this is part of the quintessential Southernness of the play, but there is an
utter lack of privacy in this kitchen. There are all these entrances that disrupt private
conversations or actions. In this house, people can enter your space without warning. So
thats interesting to consider thematically, of course, but it also necessitates practical
consideration of things like, where do we put the doors? How many ways in and out are
there? How do windows figure into the public and private spaces in the MaGrath sisters
world?
Although the term kitchen sink drama has taken on a slightly old-fashioned, or even
disparaging valence, Chalfant is quick to point out that the term was actually co ined to
describe a revolutionary form of theater, which depicted working class people, and stood in
stark contrast to the popular plays of the day set in parlors and drawing rooms. A kitchen is
like the backstage of the house, Chalfant says. Its the least formal room. Its where things
are prepared.
When asked about how it feels to take on a modern American classic as a set designer,
Chalfant thinks for a moment. What is the definition of a classic? Something that lasts, I
guess. Something that holds up. A classic takes on new layers of meaning over time.
When audiences experience McCarters production of Crimes of the Heart, the creative
team wants the audience to feel not only the presence of the rest of the MaGrath house, but
also the history within its walls. The MaGrath kitchen has layers of history from the 1940s
through the 1970s, says Chalfant. So Ive been thinking about what the bottom layer of
history is in the MaGrath kitchen. Under any updates, like new appliances or remodeled
floors, what is the underlying structure? What has this family been building on for the last 30
years?
The Play
Character Profiles
Lenny MaGrath: Celebrating her 30th birthday, Lenny is the older sister to Meg and Babe.
Maternal and responsible, shes trying to keep things together. Shes lonely.
Meg MaGrath: 27. Middle sister to Lenny and Babe. She was wild in high school, and left
for California to pursue her singing career.
Babe Botrelle: 24. The youngest of the MaGrath sisters. Shes maybe a little crazy, but
sweet.
Chick Boyle: 29. First cousin to the MaGrath sisters. She is exudes a superficial Southern
charm. Self-absorbed, obsessed with appearances.
Doc Porter: 30. Megs ex-boyfriend. Recently returned to Hazelhurst, he is married (to a
Yankee!) with children.
Barnette Lloyd: 26. Babes lawyer. Hes bright and ambitious, working his first real case. He
knows how to hold a grudge, and he believes in revenge.
Setting
Hazlehurst, Mississippi
Crimes of the Heart is set in the real-life town of Hazlehurst, Mississippi. Nestled in the heart
of Copiah County, thirty-five miles south of Jackson, Hazlehurst was founded just three
years before the outbreak of the American Civil War, and still boasts a population under
5,000 people.
Beth Henleys grandparents were long-time residents of Hazlehurst, and Henley spent many
childhood summers there. On why she chose the town as the setting for Crimes of the
Heart, Henley says: I liked the idea of how really small it waseveryone knew everyones
business so easily and there were social codes that were pretty engrained.
An evening of antic laughter Such is Miss Henleys prodigious talent that she can serve us
pain as though it were a piece of cake.
- Frank Rich, The New York Times
Movie (1986)
Beth Henley adapted her script for the big screen in 1986, which earned her an Academy
Award nomination. The star-studded cast includes Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange, Sissy
Spacek, and Sam Shepard.
Second Stage (2001)
Second Stage mounted a high profile production of Crimes of the Heart in 2001. Garry
Hynes directed and Enid Graham, Amy Ryan, and Mary Catherine Garrison played the three
MaGrath sisters.
Roundabout (2008)
The most recent New York revival was produced three years ago. Kathleen Turner
generated buzz as the shows director, and the three actresses in the lead roles were:
Jennifer Dundas, Sarah Paulson, and Lily Rabe.
The return of Crimes of the Heart gives another handful of talented women a chance to
exerciseand, in the case of Ms. Turner, deepentheir gifts onstage.
- Charles Isherwood, The New York Times
Under Kathleen Turners direction, the production makes clear just how seductive the
writers Southern-fried world is to actors: Henley provides enough subtext for her
characters to seem complicated, and just enough wackiness to allow an actor to show off.
- Hilton Als, The New Yorker
an entirely Asian American cast (the first was the 1996 production by The Repertory Actors
Theatre in Seattle). The show was directed by Leslie Ishii and featured Maya Erskine,
Kimiko Gelman, and Elizabeh Liang.
An Asian-American production of a Southern play was long overdue. Now, Ishiis staging
of Henleys best work shows us that both location and cast composition dont matter. On ly
thing that really matters is in the heart.
- Ray Luo, stagehappenings.com
Beth Henley: Well, actually it began with [former McCarter Dramaturg] Janice Paran. I was
in New York, Family Weekend had opened, it was about ten, maybe eleven years ago, and
she came to talk to me about doing a commission for McCarter. It was just such a great
time, because Id been knocked down by the critics and my play only ran a week, so I was
actually thinking, Theyre really brave to go on and offer me this now! So, I started working
on a play called Ridiculous Fraud. It took me a long time to write it, it seems like. I went a
couple of times to the Writers Retreat, which is great. Emily was very generous. I had at
least two readings there to try to get the play sorted out before they produced it.
EL: What is it like, now, having us produce Crimes of the Heart, which must receive
so many productions in a year? What does it mean to have McCarter do a production
of this play now?
BH: Well, Im just thrilled. I dont feel very close to many theaters, but McCarter I really feel
a kinship with, so Im just so pleased that they picked my play. It sounds like its going to be
a great production.
EL: The three women in your play seem so young when you read the play, and you
were quite young when you wrote it. Has your relationship with the characters in your
play changed in the thirty years since you wrote it?
BH: Well, its so funny because they did not seem young to me when I wrote it. Thirty really
did seem like, her life is over! I think I have more perspective on their youth. I think the play
has a hope to it, because theyre young. Although theyre dealing with some real ghosts and
heartbreak, theyre young enough, they have the resilience to have great lives. Or good
lives, or to have true lives.
EL: There seems to me to be something eternal about sibling relationships. That idea
that you (or I, at least) revert back to a twelve-year-old self when around siblings. In
your opinion, are sibling relationships something that shift or remain the same over
time?
BH: Thats interesting. I was just over at a friends house for dinner and the father was
saying his daughter who came back from college, whos 26, is upset because he didnt fix
her coffee. When Im with my brothers and sisters it all comes back to the same thing. I think
thats true and not true. When you grow up with these people, the heartbreak that life gives
you is sort of transforming in and of itself. You see these people and they stole your doll or
you stole their doll, but youve seen some of the realities of life that theyve gone through
and youve gone through with them, and I think it does change. I mean, it has for me.
EL: Changed in what way? What are some of the positive changes that have come out
of that time?
BH: I think a positive change is you lose hope that it will change, and once youre there,
then its kind of like, youre a little more relaxed and present. Youre not straining.
EL: Ive had the opportunity to see plays with many female protagonists. I think of
Lisa Krons Well and Sarah Ruhls Eurydice, and others that feature women, but I
know this isnt always the case and certainly wasnt the case when Crimes was first
produced. I wonder what drew you to writing about three sisters and why having three
female leads was important to you.
BH: I think there were fewer women playwrights, fewer women directors and producers,
there were not as many parts for women and I just, I have four sisters. Its autobiographical
in some sort of subliminal, spiritual way, because I do come f rom Mississippi, and thats just
what interested me. What happens when something goes terribly awry and the familys
already been kicked in the face? Now theyve got to deal with somebody having shot their
husband. And the idea that all of them are not close, they all have big secrets from each
other, but I think by the end of the play theres at least a note of mercy and honesty.
EL: I wonder if you have any thoughts about having this play produced now and the
importance of McCarter choosing a piece that centers around female protagonists. Is
that something that has taken on new meaning for you?
BH: One thing that I think is great that the play does, is give women actresses the
opportunity to show their skills. You have to be a comedian and you have to be able to do
something dramatic to make this play work. And its three women. All the parts are good. I
always feel like that is wonderful. Looking back, to me, at the time I wrote it, people would
say, Are you a feminist? and I was kind of perplexed by the question. But now I see it as
very much a play of its time in such a specific way that it, perhaps, it is more universal.
Because it is very much about women in a rage. It takes place in 1974, right at the cusp of
the womens liberation movement. But when youre in the South, you dont have that to hold
on to, so you end up shooting your husband. They take their anger out in other ways. I
mean, theyre trying to get liberty back from Old Granddaddy. Trying to sing and get a life
that is creative. So looking back on it, I find that kind of surprisingWow, it really is a
feminist play!
EL: Was the setting then something you started with when you were writing, or
something that came afterwards after a lot of the story had developed?
BH: Well, I started it to take place in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, which is a town of 3,000 in
southern Mississippi, which is where my grandparents lived, my fathers parents, so I knew
the town so to speak. I liked the idea of how really small it was, and so everyone knew
everyones business so easily and there were social codes that were pretty engrained. And I
started thinking, my grandfather got lost in the woods once, his horse came back without
him. And they sent helicopters and everyone came home from college and searched for him
and finally he was found. But when I originally thought about writing the play I thought, I
want to write about something where tragedy happens that brings everyone back. Not back
for a holiday or something good, theyre coming back for something tragic or potentially
tragic. But then, as I was writing it I thought, Uh, I think it would better if I dont know,
that just got lost. He got put in the hospital.
EL: A lot of the writing about you talks about you as a Southern writer and about you
being from Mississippi. I wonder how you think this region has affected or inspired
you?
BH: Oh, I definitely think its affected me, in many ways, because thats what youre exposed
to when you dont have the perspective to know there may be other worlds, may be other
sort of universes that are different. I mean, actually my most recent play, The Jacksonian,
takes place in Jackson, Mississippi and it takes place in 1964its sort of a place I keep
going back to. That Im haunted by.
EL: As someone whos labeled as a Southern writer, do you think there are
characteristics of Southern writing that you feel particularly connected to?
BH: I guess the storytelling aspect, just enjoying hearing a good story told well. And
language. I mean the South, they always say people talk a little bit longer because youre
sitting out on the porch. Its warm, as opposed to, its freezing up North and you cant really
talk. There was something languid about the language when I was growing up.
EL: Also, I wonder about the Southern sense of humor, the darkness, this worldview
of seeing tragic events through a humorous lens. Is this something you think is
connected to your experience with these stories from the South? Or an aspect of
growing up in your family?
BH: I think there was some sort of definite underbelly of: your pain is not precious, just get
on with it, or make a joke of it. Theres a sense of irony: dont take yourself too seriously,
dont get dramatic. I dont know if that comes from the Civil War, from having los t and facing
the humiliation, you kind of cant look at tragic things head on? Ive found the way to survive
them is to sneak under them, over them. People in the South can present their pain but not
make it a burden on others.
EL: Youve lived in California for quite a long time now, havent you? What does the
Southern identity mean to you now, living in a different part of the country? Is it still
something you feel connected to?
BH: I do. I love to go back to the South. Im a member of the Fellowship o f Southern Writers,
which is mainly novelists and poets, and also I went to Sewanee to teach this summer. I like
to go back to the South. Actually, I just like to be around people who are writers and poets.
As opposed to, I dont know, playwrights. Its nice to be around other people who are
working in different ways.
EL: I have one more question. I was reading the other day the interview you did for
Ridiculous Fraud and you mentioned in that interview: Its funny how you write
plays, they can be ahead of you. I wonder if theres a lesson that youve come across
since writing Crimes that perhaps the characters havent yet learned? Or something
from the play that youve come to appreciate more now that youre able to look back
on it?
BH: Well, what I meant to say is the play is prescient. Sometimes the play knows more than
you do. And I think, in the sense of Crimes, that play at least knew the direction to take your
life in was toward connection. Im not sure that I knew that, or that I even know that now .
And Ridiculous Fraud, it kept, the last scene I knew was in a graveyard and their mother
died, and then my mother died when I was halfway through the play. I mean, the strangest
things like that have happened.
Derived from the Gothic genrepopularized by Horace Walpoles 1765 novel The Castle of
Otranto, whose medieval setting and supernatural elements were widely imitatedthe term
has been invoked to describe a wide range of American writers, notably William Faulkner,
Flannery OConnor, Tennessee Williams, and Carson McCullers, but also contemporary
authors as diverse in their interests and literary imaginations as Anne Rice, Cormac
McCarthy, and Beth Henley.
These days Southern Gothic encompasses all manner of lurid, mysterious, otherworld ly, or
merely eccentric goings-on in Southern fiction, and while scholars, critics, and the writers
themselves variously dissect, debate or dismiss the tag, many would agree with Carson
McCullers observation that
Southern writers frequently juxtapose the tragic with the humorous, the immense with the
trivial, the sacred with the bawdy, the whole soul of man with a materialistic detail.
On a less exalted plane, the novelist Pat Conroy put it this way: My mother, Southern to the
bone, once told me, All Southern literature can be summed up in these words: On the night
the hogs ate Willie, Mama died when she heard what Daddy did to Sister.
Beth Henley, dubbed a Southern Gothic writer from the beginning of her career, finds the
designation of limited value. Still, she acknowledges that something of her Mississippi
upbringing adheres in all of her writing, regardless of setting. As much as I try to shake it, I
cant, she concedes. Its just there. A kind of sensibility thats dark and light at the same
time. A kind of Grand Guignol view of life. From Babes singularly inept suicide attempts in
Crimes of the Heart to the graveyard picnic in Ridiculous Fraud, Henleys plays routinely
locate the glorious histrionic streak that courses through calamity.
I didnt consciously say that I was going to be Southern Gothic or grotesque. I just write
things that are interesting to me. I guess maybe thats just inbred in the South. You hear
people tell stories, and somehow they are always more vivid and violent than the stories
people tell out in Los Angeles.
- Beth Henley, in Mississippi Writers Talking
Context
Hurricane Camille By Erica Nagel
Hurricane Camille, which swept
through the Mississippi gulf coast in
1969, remains the second most intense
hurricane in recorded US history. It was
classified as a category 5 storm, and,
although all wind-speed recording
equipment was destroyed, NOAA
Richelieu apartments before the hurricane, 1965 Photo used with
permission from Dan Ellis, author of All About Camille
Hurricane Camille caused 347 deaths and over a billion dollars (about 8 billion in 2011
dollars) in property damage between the winds, tidal waves, and resulting floods. Although
Hazlehurst, where the play takes place, is located more than 150 miles from the coast and
was spared the most destructive effects of the storm, the economic impact was felt
throughout the state.
As noted in the play, Meg and Doc weathered the storm in Biloxi, a city directly on the gulf
coast, which sustained unprecedented damage and destruction. One of the most famous (if
possibly apocryphal) events during Hurricane Camille was the so-called Hurricane Party in
the Richelieu Apartments in Pass Christian, Mississippi, about 20 miles west of Biloxi.
According to media accounts, 24 residents refused to evacuate and instead gathered to
drink, socialize and watch the storm. The Hurricane Party ended tragically when the high
winds completely destroyed the apartment complex. Only one of the attendees survived.
she created
the back story
of Babes
decision to
for just being cruel like that to some innocent person. So that kind of gave me the idea of
Zackery beating up on Willie Jay.
Although the civil rights movement had reached its peak in the late 1960s, for many
Mississipians, the early 1970s was a period of uncomfortable adjustment. Segregation, poll
taxes, and race-based hiring discrimination were no longer enshrined in law as acceptable
practices, but personal and institutional racism were still the norm as many white Mississippians
looked for ways to act out and capitalize on the disaffection and fear they felt in the new world
order.
In their study of how Southerners discussed race in the wake of the civil rights movement,
James Kuklinski and Michael D. Cobb describe the ways in which white Southerners, having
been told their whole lives that they were better and more deserving than their black neighbors,
now had to shift their identities to reflect a world in which equality was legally mandated. Though
there were plenty of white Southerners who accepted the shifts in the culture, many felt
cheated, angry and fearful of the new order, and continued to intimidate and perpetrate violence
upon the black community.
In addition to racism from individuals, larger institutional
systems of racism and division were being insidiously
structured through national and state politics. When
Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he
famously noted that the Democrats had lost the South for
a generation. Republican strategists, such as Kevin
Phillips, quickly capitalized on the feeling of betrayal and
disaffection among white Southern voters. In his 1969
book, The Emerging Republican Majority, Phillips
explained the central element of his Southern Strategy,
which identified angry white Southerners as the future of
Racist hazing practices at an all-white Ole
Miss Fraternity captured on film in 1973.
Image used from University of Mississippi
yearbook with permission.
Negro vote and they dont need any more than that.The more Negroes who register as
Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and
become Republicans. Thats where the votes are.
In 1968, Nixon was elected by a conservative silent majority, due in part to his campaign of
states rightswhich had become in some ways a stand-in phrase for political support of
segregation and other pre-civil rights laws. In his book chapter entitled, The Future of
Southern Politics: New Directions for Dixie, Alexander Lamis recounts a startling quote by
Lee Atwater, Ronald Reagans campaign manager leading up to the 1980 election. Atwater
explained the Southern Strategy and the emphasis on states rights and economic polic y
this way: You start out in 1954 by saying, N---, n---, n---. By 1968 you cant say n---that
hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights, and all these things
that youre talking about are totally economic things and a by-product of them is [that] blacks
get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it... because obviously
sitting around saying, We want to cut this, is much more abstract than even the busing
thing and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'N----, n----.
Beth Henley has said in multiple interviews that Anton Chekhovs work has been a major
source of inspiration throughout her career. In the January 2005 edition of American Drama,
she even went so far as to state that Crimes of the Heart is loosely based on his Three
Sisters.
In her close analysis of the two plays, literary scholar Joanne Karpinski writes: It may seem
premature to compare a playwrights first work (albeit a Pulitzer winner) to the epitome of
Chekhovs dramatic ouvre, but similarities of plot, setting, theme, and character invite such a
comparison. She goes on to point out parallels between specific characters: the vulgar
female intruders, Natasha and Chick; self-sacrificing Olga and Lenny, both believed to be
spinsters at thirty; Mashas wasted talent as a piano player and Megs thwarted singing
career; the duel between two admirers of the young, nave Irina and Babes shooting of her
husband to defend her lovers honor. Though certainly the parallels become tenuous when
examined too closely, Karpinski notes that what Henleys dramatized siblings chiefly have
in common with Chekhovs is a sense of blighted expectations about work and love.
Of course, another striking connection between Crimes of the Heart and Three Sisters is
their shared commitment to tragicomic tone, she writes. Whatever causes might account
for the emphasis on comedy in Henleys tragicomic mixture, comparison with Chekhov on
this point suggests that depth need not be sacrificed to laughter.
admirers and Irina decides to leave the town and devote her life to work and service. At the
plays end, the three sisters embrace as they watch the soldiers depart.
Mississippi as Muse
Its sort of a place I keep going back to. That Im haunted by.
-Beth Henley on how Mississippi has inspired her writing.
Its hard to ignore how influential growing up in Mississippi has been on Beth Henleys style
and choice of subject, but shes certainly not the first to have fallen under the states
peculiar inspirational spell. The list of artists with roots in Mississippi is impressive and there
is clearly something about the people, their stories, the small towns, and the warm climate
that has fed and encouraged a vibrant literary tradition.
Below are some reflections on Mississippi from the best and brightest writers of this prolific
state.
Some commentators attribute the abundance of excellent Mississippi literature to
Mississippis history of storytelling, to the oral and folk traditions of the yarn, the tale, the
folktale of both black and white people. They believe that Mississippians love a good story,
whether an embellished factual account of fishing or hunting, or true stories of
relationshipsof love and rebuff and tricks and trading, or the spinning of fictive
explanations of the mysteries of everyday life or those of the cosmos. Stories are what
Mississippians have thrived upon. Mississippians have not been much for abstractions, so
theories and philosophy typically have not gone over well in Mississippi, but good storie s
have.
-From Mississippi Mind by Willie Morris, author of My Dog Skip and winner of Houghton
Mifflin Literary Fellowship Award.
My Mississippi Spring
My warm loving heart-a-fire
With early greening leaves,
Dogwood branches laced against the sky;
Wild forest nature paths
Heralding Resurrection
Over and over again.
Courtesy of the Margaret
Walker Center, Jackson
State University
In the beginning it was virginto the west, along the Big River, the alluvial swamps
threaded by black almost motionless bayous and impenetrable with cane and buckvine and
cypress and ash and oak and gum; to the east, the hardwood ridges and the prairies where
the Appalachian mountains died and buffalo grazed; to the south, the pine barrens and the
moss-hung live oaks and the greater swamps less of earth than water and lurking with
alligators and water moccasins where Louisiana in its time would begin.
-William Faulkner, Nobel Prize winner known for his experimental, often stream -ofconsciousness, writing style and stories that take place in the American South. This
quotation is from the only non-fiction piece he ever wrote about his
home state, Mississippi.
-Eudora Welty, Pulitzer Prize winning writer and charter member of the Fellowship of
Southern Writers, interviewed in Mississippi Writers Talking.
You can say I found my voice in my Mississippi background. In Mississippi I found a place
to house the uncertainty of chaos ushered in by fear and anxiety, and I found in the people I
had known a language and a music to complement my voiceThough there will be other
places in my life none will be home, as close and as painfully or joyfully familiar as
Mississippi.
-Sterling Plumpp, author of Hornman and professor at University of Illinois, quoted in My
Mississippi.
Additional Resources:
Mississippi Writers and Musicians
The Fellowship of Southern Writers
Additional Resources
Bibliography:
Betchtel, Stefan. Roar of the Heavens: Surviving Hurricane Camille. Secaucus: Citadel,
2006.
Boyd, James. Its All in the Charts. New York Times Magazine, 17 May 1970, 215.
Available to view at: http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/books/phillipssouthern.pdf
Chirco, Miriam. Dancing on the Edge of a Cliff in Julia A Fesmire, ed., Beth Henley: A
Casebook. New York: Routledge, 2002. 1-31.
Craig, Carolyn Casey. Women Pulitzer Prize Winners. Jefferson: McFarland, 2004.
Danielson, Chris. Lily White and Hard Right: The Mississippi Republican Party and Black
Voting, 1965-1980. The Journal of Southern History, February, 2009.
Hearn, Philip D. Hurricane Camille: Monster Storm of the Gulf Coast. Jackson:University
Press of Mississippi, 2004.
Jones, John Griffin. Mississippi Writers Talking. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi,
1982.
Karpinksi, Joanne. Ghosts of Chekhovs Three Sisters Haunt Beth Henleys Crimes of the
Heart in June Schluter, ed., Modern Drama: The Female Canon. Madison: Farleigh
Dickonson U. Press, 1996.
Killian, Lewis. White Southerners. New York: Random House, 1970
Kulinksi, James H. and Cobb, Michael D. When White Southerners Converse About Race
in Jon Hurwitz and Mark Peffley ed., Perception and Prejudice: Race and Politics in the
United States. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. 35-57.
Lamis, Alexander The Future of Southern Politics: New Directions for Dixie in Joe P. Dunn
and Lawrence Preston, ed., The Future South: A Historical Perspective for the Twenty-first
Century (U. of Illinois Press, 1991), 61-62.
Lipman, Don. Hurricane Camille: She Was No Lady! Washington Post, 17 August, 2009.
Morris, Willie and David Rae. My Mississippi. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi,
2000.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. Hurricane History.
Phillips, Kevin. The Emerging Republican Majority. Arlington House, 1969.
Roger, V. Cullum.Beth Heley: Signature of a Non-stop Playwright. Backstage, 24 March
1995, 23.
USA Today Weather Editorial Team. A Look Back at Hurricane Camille. USA Today, 3
May, 2005.
Yates, Gayle Graham. Mississippi Mind. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press,
1990.
Educators
Core Curriculum Standards
According to the NJ Department of Education, experience with and knowledge of the arts is
a vital part of a complete education. Our production of Crimes of the Heart and the activities
outlined in this guide are designed to enrich your students education by addressing the
following specific Core Curriculum Content Standards for Visual and Performing Arts:
1.1
The Creative Process: All students will demonstrate an understanding of the elements and
principles that govern the creation of works of art in dance, music, theatre, and visual art.
1.2
History of the Arts and Culture: All students will understand the role, development, and influence
of the arts throughout history and across cultures.
1.3
Performance: All students will synthesize those skills, media, methods, and technologies
appropriate to creating, performing, and/or presenting works of art in dance, music, theatre, and
visual art.
1.4
Aesthetic Responses & Critique Methodologies: All students will demonstrate and apply an
understanding of arts philosophies, judgment, and analysis to works of art in dance, music, theatre,
and visual art.
Viewing Crimes of the Heart and then participating in the pre- and post-show discussions
and activities suggested in this audience guide will also address the following Core
Curriculum Content Standards in Language Arts Literacy:
3.1
Reading: All students will understand and apply the knowledge of sounds, letters, and words in
written English to become independent and fluent readers, and will read a variety of materials and
texts with fluency and comprehension.
3.2
Writing: All students will write in clear, concise, organized language that varies in content and
form for different audiences and purposes.
3.3
Speaking: All students will speak in clear, concise, organized language that varies in content and
form for different audiences and purposes.
3.4
Listening: All students will listen actively to information from a variety of sources in a variety of
situations.
3.5
Viewing and Media Literacy: All students will access, view, evaluate, and respond to print, nonprint, and electronic texts and resources.
In addition, the production of Crimes of the Heart as well as the audience guide activities will
help to fulfill the following Social Studies Core Curriculum Standards:
6.1
U.S. HistoryAmerica in the World: All students will acquire the knowledge and skills to think
analytically about how past and present interactions of people, cultures, and the environment shape
the American heritage. Such knowledge and skills enable students to make informed decisions that
reflect fundamental rights and core democratic values as productive citizens in local, national, and
global communities.
The activities and questions for discussion immediately below are designed for teachers
able to incorporate either the full or Act One reading of Crimes of the Heart into their preperformance curriculum.
A. Have your students read the full text or Act One of Crimes of the Heart (preferably
aloud as a class).
B. After the reading, ask your students to discuss the given circumstances of the play
(i.e., the facts of the world of the play, including the specific conditions of place and
time, the characters and their relationships to one another, all detectable information
in their back-stories, and any details of what has happened before the action of the
play has begun). Also, ask your students what each characters action (what the
character wants either consciously or subconsciously) and motivation (the reason
why he or she wants what he or she wants) is. And finally, talk about the conflicts
(those persons or things that stand in the way of the character getting what he wants)
the characters face in pursuit of their actions.
C. Then have students brainstorm a list of themes central to the play. [These might
include: homecoming; sibling rivalry and familial discord; the burden of secrets and
family history; the taboo of suicide/mental illness; kinship and consolation through
the family bond; individual choice and freedom in the face of familial and social
expectations; the oppression of gender/social roles and acts of female assertion and
rebellion; loneliness and the varying layers and causes of heart break; the insularity
and suffocative nature of small-town life, etc.] Ask your students to recall and make
connections to their own lives, someone elses life, or to other plays or works of
literature they have read or studied with themes similar to those of Crimes of the
Heart.
D. If students read only the first act of the play, ask them what they think will happen in
the second and third acts of Crimes of the Heart.
3. In Context: Crimes of the Heart, Playwright Beth Henley, and This Production. To
prepare your students for Crimes of the Heart and to deepen their level of understanding
of and appreciation for the play and its context, the dramatic individuality and distinctive
voice of Beth Henley, and to introduce them to McCarters production team, have
students research, either in groups or individually, the following topics:
o
Beth Henley
Dark Comedy
Southern Gothic
Hazlehurst, Mississippi
Hurricane Camille
Am I Blue
Ridiculous Fraud
Anton Chekhovs play Three Sisters (and Crimes of the Heart comparison)
Have students teach one another about their individual or group topics via oral and
illustrated (i.e., posters or PowerPoint) reports. Following the presentations ask your
students to reflect upon their research process and discoveries.
4. Scene Study: Acting from the Heart . To prepare their minds, ears, and funny bones
for the pleasures and challenges of Beth Henleys idiosyncratic brand of dark comedy,
have your students study an excerpt from a scene from Crimes of the Heart. We
suggest the following French scenes/dramatic interactions from the play, which can be
found in either the Penguin Plays (1982) or the Dramatists Play Service reprint (1998)
edition:
#1
Opening moment of the play between Lenny and Chick, beginning at the top
of the play, page 3 (Penguin) or 5 (Dramatists), and ending with Chicks line,
Thats just the way I was brought up to be, on page 8.
#2
Opening moment of Act II, between Babe and Barnette, beginning at the top of
the act, page 55 (Penguin) or 34 (Dramatists), through Barnettess line on
page 59 (P) or 36 (D), All right, Becky.
Interaction between Lenny, Meg, and Babe in Act III, at Lennys entrance on
page 121 (Penguin) or 70 (Dramatists), to the end of the play.
#3
First, if you havent already, share the articles and interviews included in the
McCarter Crimes of the Heart web site Audience Resource Guide with your
students.
Next, break your class up into scene-study duos or trios. Groups of two
should work on scene #1 (Lenny and Chick) or #2 (Babe and Barnette) and
groups of three on scene #3 (Lenny, Meg, and Babe). [Please encourage your
male students not to shy away from the female roles. Remind them that all the
female roles in Shakespeares plays during Elizabethan times were played by
male actors, and encourage them to approach their scene study assignments
with truthfulness and authenticity, as opposed to caricature and stereotype.]
Scene-study groups should read their scene aloud once together before
getting up to stage it, to get a sense of the characters and the scene overall.
What insights, if any, regarding the play or the characters did you get
from staging the play and playing the characters?
What about your character felt real to you in the acting of him or her?
Was there any moment that felt strange or awkward in bringing your
character to life?
5. Everything and the Kitchen Sink: Designing Crimes of the Heart with Andromache
Chalfant. When one picks up the script of Crimes of the Heart, playwright Beth Henley
welcomes the reader into the world of her play, thusly:
The Setting
The setting of the entire play is the kitchen in the MaGrath sisters house in
Hazlehurst, Mississippi, a small Southern town. The old-fashioned kitchen is
unusually spacious, but there is a lived-in, cluttered look about it. There are four
different entrances and exits to the kitchen: the back door, the door leading to
the dining room and the front of the house, a door leading to the downstairs
bedroom, and as staircase leading to the upstairs room. There is a table near
the center of the room, and a cot has been set up in one of the corners.
The Time
In the fall, five years after Hurricane Camille
When the reader is a set designer, such as Andromach Chalfant, the creative juices begin to
flow:
Setting the whole play in a kitchen is great because its a central recognizable element.
But it creates a challenge to fill the stage believably. The MaGrath kitchen has layers of
history from the 1940s through the 1970s. So Ive been thinking about what the bottom
layer of history is in the MaGrath kitchen. Under any updates, like new appliances or
remodeled floors, what is the underlying structure? What has this family been building
on for the last 30 years?
Have your students considerboth intellectually and artisticallythe kitchen sink drama of
Crimes of the Heart from the visual perspective of designer Andromache Chalfant.
o
Compare and contrast speaking or hearing the text aloud rather than silently
reading. What do you notice about Henleys dialogue?
Hazlehurst, Mississippi
If possible, have students read Crimes of the Heart from a designers point of
view, taking into special account the world of the play which the MaGrath sisters
inhabit from a specifically visual/physical perspective.
Then with all of their above research completed, ask students to create a set
design rendering (or full color illustration) for Crimes of the Heart.
Students should be given time to show their finished Crimes of the Heart
renderings to the class, and they should explain their choices and process.
What did you notice about the costumes designed by Marion Williams and worn
by the actors? What do you think were the artistic and practical decisions that
went into the conception of the costumes?
g. How did the Karin Graybashs sound design enhance your overall experience?
2. Additional Post-Show Questions and Discussion Points for Crimes of the Heart.
Southern Stamp
Throughout Crimes of the Heart we find or hear stories of Henleys characters engaging
in common activities such as eating ice cream or looking through an illustrated medical
book. However, it is the juxtaposition of these two things that makes the actions of the
characters slightly disturbing or downright bizarre. Henleys quirky, signature
combinations give us insight into her characters, their small town life, and the
playwrights Southern Gothic sensibility. Share the following quote by Janice Paran from
What is Southern Gothic?with your students, and use the questions below to spark a
dialogue on this distinctive writing style.
These days Southern Gothic encompasses all manner of lurid, mysterious,
otherworldly or merely eccentric goings-on in Southern fiction, and while
scholars, critics and the writers themselves variously dissect, debate or
dismiss the tag, many would agree with Carson McCullers observation that
Southern writers frequently juxtapose the tragic with the humorous, the
immense with the trivial, the sacred with the bawdy, the whole soul of man
with a materialistic detail.Henleys plays routinely locate the glorious
histrionic streak that courses through calamity.
o
What judgments, if any, do you make about the characters based on their
actions? Can you analyze their motives or reasons why they do the often
bizarre or fantastic things they do?
Relate the Southern Gothic style to other plays, works of literature and
art that you have studied. Consider what the artist or writer is trying to
Who do you think is the protagonist of Crimes of the Heart? (See if they
can debate their way to identifying Lenny, Meg, and Babe as a group
protagonist on their own.)
What strong desires, needs or wants do Lenny, Meg and Beth express in
the course of the play, and what obstacles stand in the way of them
pursing or fulfilling those desires, needs or wants?
At the end of Crimes of the Heart, do you think that any of the characters
have been changed or transformed by confrontation or the conflict they
have gone through? Who has been changed? What was the character
like at the plays beginning and what is s/he like when the lights fade on
the final moment? What from the action of the play accounts for her or his
transformation?
Do you think the relationship of the sisters has been altered? For the
better? For the worse? What will the next year look like for the MaGrath
sisters of Hazlehurst?
3. Eulogizing Old Granddaddy la Beth Henley. Crimes of the Heart ends with a
celebration of Lennys birthday with a big gooey birthday cake, yetand in true Southern
Gothic fashionit seems likely that this happy and renewing ritual will be followed by
moribund Old Granddaddys last rites and funeral. Have your students embrace the
world and style of Beth Henley and adopt the character, voice, attitude, and back story of
one of the MaGrath sisters to write a eulogy for Old Granddaddy.
o
Once students have chosen the character from whose point of view they are
interested in writing, ask them to consider what that characters relationship
was like with Old Granddaddythe good and the bad. Ask them also to
consider what Lenny, Meg, or Babe would want to say about Old Granddaddy
or to Old Granddaddy himself.
Although students should feel free to explore any and every avenue of their
characters biography and her relationship with Old Granddaddy to write their
eulogies, one thing that must be included in their speech is at least one
occurence of homage to the Southern Gothic stamp (as explored in the
discussion points above and in Janice Parans short web article What is
Southern Gothic?
Students eulogies may be read aloud for the classin character, of course!
and discussed. Ask students to consider what they find fitting interesting,
compelling, unique, meaningful, etc., about each eulogy. Also ask students to
elaborate on their intentions and process.
4. Crimes of the Heart: The Review. Have your students take on the role of theater critic
by writing a review of the McCarter Theatre production of Crimes of the Heart. A theater
critic or reviewer is essentially a professional audience member, whose job is to
provide reportage of a plays production and performance through active and descriptive
language for a target audience of readers (e.g., their peers, their community, or those
interested in the arts). Critics/reviewers analyze the theatrical event to provide a clearer
understanding of the artistic ambitions and intentions of a play and its production;
reviewers often ask themselves, What is the playwright and this production attempting
to do? Finally, the critic offers personal judgment as to whether the artistic intentions of
a production were achieved, effective, and worthwhile. Things to consider before
writing:
Educators may want to provide their students with sample theater reviews
from a variety of newspapers.
Encourage your students to submit their reviews to the school newspaper for
publication.
Credits
Editors:
Carrie Hughes, Adam Immerwahr, Erica Nagel
Contributors:
Paula Alekson, Lauren Durdach, Carrie Hughes, Emilia LaPenta, Erica Nagel, Janice Paran
Web Design: Dimple Parmar