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Crimes of the Heart | Introduction

Beth Henley completed Crimes of the Heart, her tragic comedy about three sisters surviving crisis after crisis in a small Mississippi town, in 1978. She submitted it to several regional theatres for consideration without success. Unknown to her, however, a friend had entered it in the well-known Great American Play Contest of the Actors' Theatre of Louisville. The play was chosen as co-winner for 1977-78 and performed in February, 1979, at the company's annual festival of New American Plays. The production was extremely well-received, and the play was picked up by numerous regional theatres for their 1979-81 seasons.

At the end of 1980, Crimes of the Heart was produced off-Broadway at the Manhattan Theatre Club for a limited, sold-out, engagement of thirty-two performances. By the time the play transferred to Broadway in November, 1981, Crimes of the Heart had received the prestigious Pulitzer Prize. Henley was the first woman to win the Pulitzer for Drama in twenty-three years, and her play was the first ever to win before opening on Broadway. Crimes of the Heart went on to garner the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best New American Play, a Gugenheim Award, and a Tony nomination. The tremendously successful Broadway production ran for 535 performances, spawning regional productions in London, Chicago, Washington, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Dallas, and Houston. The success of the play—and especially the prestige of the Pulitzer award—assured Henley's place among the elite of the American theatre for years to come. As Henley herself put it, with typically wry humor, ' 'winning the Pulitzer Prize means I'll never have to work in a dog-food factory again" (Haller 44).

Often compared to the work of other "Southern Gothic'' writers like Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor, Henley's play is widely appreciated for its compassionate look at good country people whose lives have gone wrong. Henley explores the pain of life by piling up tragedies on her characters in a manner some critics have found excessive, but she does so with a dark and penetrating sense of humor which audiences—as the play's success has demonstrated—found to be a fresh perspective in the American theatre.

Crimes of the Heart Summary

The entire action of the play takes place in the kitchen of the MaGrath sisters' house in Hazlehurst, Mississippi.

Act I
The action opens on Lenny McGrath trying to stick a birthday candle into a cookie. Her cousin, Chick, arrives, upset about news in the paper (the content of which is not yet revealed to the audience). She wonders how she's "gonna continue holding my head up high in this community." She and Lenny discuss going to pick up Lenny's sister Babe. Chick expresses displeasure with other facets of the MaGraths' family, as she gives Lenny a birthday present—a box of candy. Doc Porter, an old boyfriend of the other McGrath sister, Meg, arrives, and Chick leaves to pick up Babe. Lenny is upset at Doc's news that Billy Boy, an old childhood horse of Lenny's, was struck by lightning and killed. Doc leaves to pick up his son at the dentist.

Lenny receives a phone call with news about "Zackery" (who we learn later is Babe's husband), who is hospitalized with serious injuries. Meg arrives, and as she and Lenny talk, it is revealed that Babe has shot her husband and is being held in jail. There is an awkwardness between the two sisters as they discuss their grandfather; Lenny has been caring for him (sleeping on a cot in the kitchen to be near his room), and he has recently been hospitalized after a stroke. Lenny learns that Meg's singing career, the reason she had moved to California, is not going well—as is evidenced by her return to Hazelhurst.

Chick returns to the house, accompanying Babe. Chick shows obvious displeasure for Meg, and for Babe, who "doesn't understand how serious the situation is." Lenny and Chick run out after a phone call from a neighbor having an emergency. Meg and Babe, left alone together, discuss why it was that their mother committed suicide, hanging herself along with the family cat. Babe also begins revealing to her sister more about shooting her husband. The sisters also discuss Lenny, whose self-consciousness over her shrunken ovary, they feel, has prevented her from pursuing relationships with men, in particular a Charlie from Memphis who Lenny dated briefly. Noticing the box of candy, Meg and Babe realize they've forgotten Lenny's birthday. They plan to order her a cake, as Babe's lawyer Barnette arrives at the house. Babe hides from him at first, as Meg and Barnette, who remembers her singing days in Biloxi, become reacquainted,

Barnette reveals that he's taken Babe's case partly because he has a personal vendetta against Zackery, Babe's husband. Barnette also reveals that medical records suggest Zackery had abused Meg leading up to the shooting. Barnette leaves and Babe reappears, confronted by Meg with the medical information. Babe admits she's protecting someone: Willie Jay, a fifteen year-old African... » Complete Crimes of the Heart Summary