Crimes of the Heart
Beth Henley's play, Crimes of the Heart, won both the Drama Critics Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1981. Despite the honors, to the well-balanced, sensible Midwestern audience, these characters may seem like a gathering of Menniger alumni, but to those of us born south of the Mason/Dixon line, the play seems like a family reunion. We southerners know these characters; in fact we are related to most of them. Crimes of the Heart is vintage Southern Gothic, served up with a generous helping of humor. Don't be afraid to laugh with these characters as they themselves laugh, cry, scream, moan, and wonder what is happening to their lives. In the coarse of the play, the McGrath sister await the death of Old Granddaddy, tease and torment on another, break open old wounds, cope with an attempted murder, and face yet another famliy scandal. The play is about life and death, about love and loss, about dreams and fears, about growing old and growing up. But don't be decieved by the potentialy tragic subject matter, this piece is fundamentally comic with a dusting of the absurd. When the sisters finally figure out why their mother killed the cat before she herself committed suicide, you will not be able to resist the comic logic of their explanation - and of their lives. As the Pulitzer Prie committee said about the drama, this is " a play rich wisdom about the way people respond to life"

J. Karen Ray, Professor of English

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize , The New York Drama Critics Circle Award
Grandaddy is in the hospital. Babe has shot her husband . Meg is having anxiety attacks and Lenny, on her birthday, tries desperately to hold the troubled family together. Set in Hazelhurst, Mississippi, five years after hurricane Camille, Beth Henley’s touching and infectious dark comedy is passionate, witty and intelligent.

About the Playwright

Beth Henley was born in 1952 in Jackson, Mississippi, the daughter of an actress and an attorney. She earned a BFA at Southern Methodist University where her first play, Am I Blue was produced. Crimes of the Heart (1978) was her introduction into the critical spotlight. The play garnered a number of awards and the subsequent screenplay adapted from her play was nominated for an Academy Award. Her writing is profoundly influenced by her Southern "types" have promoted critivs and audiences to compare her work to that of Flannery O'Conner and Eudora Welty. Along with more than a dozen plays to her credit Ms. Henley has written several television and movie screenplays. She lives in California with her son, Patrick.