For most families, a sister plugging a bullet into the belly of her abusive husband is plenty enough to constitute a bad day.
Poor Lenny also slaves over an ungrateful, dying granddad; she has nephews slurping down paint; and a paralyzed love life that probably has something to do with her being barren — and having a mom who hanged herself, along with the family cat.
Happy birthday, Lenny: Your only presents are a half-eaten box of chocolates and news your beloved old horse was just hit by lightning.
You couldn’t start with a more eye-rolling premise if you were writing for “As the World Turns.” Seriously: “Crimes of the Heart” makes “Desperate Housewives” look like “Masterpiece Theatre.” This isn’t just a soaper. It’s a geyser spraying millions of gallons of Liquid Tide.
Only here’s the thing: Beth Henley’s 1979 popcorn pleasure won the Pulitzer Prize, the most baffling selection since William Inge’s steamy “Picnic” in 1953.
If “Crimes” were a comic parody of small-town Mississippi, it would be a high-sterical one. Instead, it’s a heartstring-yanker with serious staying power. It’s ubiquitous on area stages, and there’s a high-profile off-Broadway revival right now directed by Ms. “Body Heat” herself, Kathleen Turner. (“populist treacle,” it was called — and not for the first time).
What keeps this “Heart” beating after nearly 30 years is the undeniable appeal of Henley’s three beleaguered, damaged Magrath sisters — lonely spinster Lenny (Laura Norman), slutty failed singer Meg (Megan Van De Hey) and domestic markswoman Babe (Emily Paton Davies). She’s the one who’s made a scandal by shooting the senator hubby who secretly brutalized her.
The play’s (primarily female) audiences love the Magraths because no matter how outrageous the tale is, anyone can relate to sisters who unearth every past petty resentment for one another, release them and rally together against all manner of destructive forces, external and internal. Your family may not be as screwed-up as the Magraths, but it’s probably screwed-up enough for you to feel for them, laugh with them and root for a family under assault.
And if these three sisters are well-cast, then “Crimes” can make for an easy and enjoyable evening of theater. If not? . . . Oh, if not . . .
Thankfully, the Victorian Playhouse’s effective and affecting staging is very well-cast. Terry Dodd has reunited his ensemble from 2006’s “Smell of the Kill” at The Avenue Theater — another tale in which men don’t fare too well. Their experience and ease with one another is evident in each of these brave performances.
These actors fight against the script’s breathless blatancy, and instead infuse their trashy scenes with humanity and believability. Dodd smartly builds these characters from the inside out, bringing out the vulnerability in each. There’s nuance and exactitude in every unscripted word, making for many small, wonderful moments.It’s evident in the way they walk, hunch, evil-eye and glower.
As a result, they just come across as (incredulously) real sisters: hideous to one another one minute, ferociously supportive the next. Norman lets you see the OCD in Lenny, Davies the bipolarism in Babe, Van De Hey the compulsive liar in Meg.
These three Dixie chicks really make plain the story’s Chekovian undertones: Three delusional sisters living trapped, vacuous lives, wondering if life will be any more worth living tomorrow than it was today? Yep, it matches up.
They’re also quite funny, but only when it’s right for them to be funny. They’re too good to let the plot’s potential broad humor control the tale, which would be fatal to it.
They are also complemented by two fantastic supporting actors who are every bit their equals — spitfire Susan Scott as a snotty, judgmental cousin who blows on and off stage with gale force (Davies played this role in a Littleton Town Hall Arts Center staging in 2003); and a remarkably natural Nils Swanson (formerly Kiehn) as a former boyfriend whose dreams were pretty much ruined by Meg’s selfishness, but is still irresistibly drawn to her.
Henley aimed for Shepard and missed. But with the right actors, at least she landed a bit higher than Steele.
John Moore: 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com
“Crimes of the Heart”
Southern soap Victorian Playhouse, 4201 Hooker St. Written by Beth Henley. Directed by Terry Dodd. Through May 17. 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. $20-$22. 303-433-4343 or .
