REVIEW: 'Crimes of the Heart'

MISERY LOVES COMPANY: Megan Van De Hey, Laura Norman and Emily Paton Davies star as three disaster-prone Mississippi sisters in the Denver Victorian Playhouse's exceptionally well-acted production of "Crimes of the Heart."


For the most part, the three crazy MaGrath sisters in Beth Henley's Pulitzer-Prize winning tragicomedy "Crimes of the Heart" take themselves, and their stunningly miserable lives seriously. But that doesn't mean the audience has to.

Denver Victorian Playhouse's beautifully performed production, with its stellar cast, fine direction and meticulously detailed set has audiences laughing until they cry, and then laugh again.

It's a wonder the siblings can even stagger around the stage, burdened as they are by the weight of disasters, natural and unnatural alike. An army of bellhops couldn't carry so much emotional baggage! Most of the play, which is always interesting even as it lurches from one combination of confrontation scenes to the next, consists of reminiscing about, arguing over, and perpetuating countless catastrophic events, any two or three of which would incapacitate lesser beings.

Here's a sampling: abandoned by dad, witnessed mom's suicide (she also hanged the cat), dying grandpa, former boyfriend crippled by a hurricane and then married a Yankee, infertility due to undeveloped ovaries, failed singing career leading to job as a clerk in a dog food factory, affair with a minor, shot abusive senator husband in the stomach, beloved horse struck by lightning, and family forgets your birthday.

And that's just for starters! There's enough achy breaky material here for a lifetime of country-western songs.

"Crimes of the Heart" feels like a play that was written for actors, rather than to tell a cohesive story. Director Terry Dodd has assembled a dream cast of first-rate virtuoso performers, who seize the script's emotional challenges like a pack of pit bulls and shake them silly, wrenching from them all the comedy, pathos and surreal behavior they can.

For a play that celebrates the remarkable resilience of the human spirit, "Crimes" is disturbingly void of any religious or spiritual content, other than a brief discussion of the conditions for the granting of birthday wishes. Without any cause for real hope, the MaGraths seem doomed to pitiful, tragic ends, and for some reason that's supposed to be praiseworthy.

"Crimes of the Heart" is thoroughly entertaining, partly because of the deluge of disasters the characters somehow survive, partly because of what's glaringly missing in their lives, and mostly because of the cast's outstanding performances.

"Crimes of the Heart" plays at the Denver Victorian Playhouse through May 24. For information or tickets, call 303-433-4343 or visit www.denvervic.com.