“Crimes of the Heart” opens tonight
Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Beth Henley’s “Crimes of the Heart” opens February 26 in the College of Eastern Utah’s Geary Theatre and continues through March 2 with Sunday’s being dark.
Directed by Todd Olsen, the play is the story about two days in the lives of three sisters from Hazlehurst, Miss. They have gathered to await news of the family patriarch, their grandfather, who is living out his last hours in the local hospital.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Beth Henley’s “Crimes of the Heart” opens February 26 in the College of Eastern Utah’s Geary Theatre and continues through March 2 with Sunday’s being dark.
Directed by Todd Olsen, the play is the story about two days in the lives of three sisters from Hazlehurst, Miss. They have gathered to await news of the family patriarch, their grandfather, who is living out his last hours in the local hospital.
Lenny, the oldest sister, is unmarried and at 30 facing diminishing marital prospects; Meg, the middle sister, who quickly outgrew Hazlehurst, is back after a failed singing career on the West Coast; while Babe, the youngest, is out on bail after having shot her husband in the stomach.
Their troubles, which are grave and yet, somehow, hilarious, are highlighted by their priggish cousin, Chick, and an awkward young lawyer who tries to keep Babe out of jail while helpless to not to fall in love with her.
In the end the play is the story of how its young characters escape the past to seize the future. “From time to time a play comes along that restores one’s faith in our theatre … ” quotes the New York Magazine.
“It has heart, wit and a surprising zany passion that must carry all before it … it would certainly be a crime for anyone interested in theatre not to see the play,” quoted The New York Post. Besides winning a Pulitzer Prize, “Crimes of the Heart” garnered the New York Drama Critics Circle Award.
The play overflows with infectious high spirit that should descend upon the audience, a minor detail that Olsen did not see when he first saw the play in Los Angeles.
He thus wanted to produce the play as part of CEU’s Theatre department because, “I saw the production, a really bad production, in Los Angeles two years ago.
I knew the only way to exorcize the demons would be to produce it myself.”
He says his favorite part of the play is, “When the characters Babe and Meg talk and dream about how big the birthday cake will be they are getting Lenny.”
The cast includes: Diana Halford, Sheri Gillies, David Bohnet, Angie Roundy, Melissa Spencer and Jacob Dickey.
The production is stage managed by Phil Smith.
