Chimes Of The Heart @ Theatre Aspen

August 1st, 2008 at 08:14am Michael Conniff 2

"Crimes of the Heart," the black comedy by Beth Henley presented by Theatre Aspen and now underway under the tent in Rio Grande Park, finds horror in comedy and comedy in horror. Nobody--neither actors nor audience--gets cheated in the Aspen production directed by Michael Unger with a confidence that embraces Southern gothic chaos without losing control of the proceedings for a single moment.

The cast is part of the continuing Theatre Aspen upgrade of talent: director Unger and all six actors in the show are members of Actors Equity, generally a good sign. (All four Theatre Aspen shows continue throughout August.) In the theatrical equivalent of a chick flick, the three McGrath sisters--playing with astonishing pugnacity by Janet Metz, Lisa Datz, and Sandy Rustin--and their cousin Chick Boyle, played by Sally Mae Dunn, who embraces reprehensibility with a brio that borders on the illegal--manage to laugh and cry and stomp their way to a conclusion that becomes maniacly cheerful despite the odds. Both Richard Gallagher and Kevin Stapleton, the stars of the guy comedy "Rounding Third" at Theatre Aspen this summer, again display their wily versatility and easy humanity in supporting roles they could easily have phoned in.

The story is about family dysfunction risen to the level of art. You see, Babe (Rustin) has just shot her husband Zachary, an oily and awful big-shot lawyer in Hazelhurst, Mississippi. She makes bail and comes back to the home that her sister (Lenny) is keeping for Old Grandaddy, an overbearing force now unseen because he has been dispatched to the hospital with a stroke. The play takes place on Lenny's 30th birthday--and one day later--and the event is not a happy one, in part because of her "shrunken ovary," a condition that is oft-remarked upon. Meg (Datz) is a failed singer with on-again, off-again mental problems who is so godawful ashamed of her life she has to lie about it to Old Grandaddy. Doc Porter (Stapleton) is the boyfriend she loved but left after the roof literally fell in, and Barnette Lloyd (Gallagher) is Babe's lawyer bent on revenge against her husband, the man with a bullet in his belly.

Got that? One other thing: the mother of the stanky McGraths not only hung herself in the basement of their house, but also hung the family cat with her, a decision that brought "national" attention to the wonder of Babe, who contemplates same. Why hang the cat when you're killing yourself. The whole play hinges on the answer to that question.

Maybe you've seen the movie with Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange, and Sissy Spacek, but the stage version at Theatre Aspen surpasses those performances in my opinion. The actors almost seem to bust out of their seams with talent: toward the end of the evening the three McGrath sisters also show you that they can all sing beautifully--to go with their mastery of comedy, drama, and that place in between where most of life goes down. You hear their beautiful voices after all the comedy and carnage that has transpired, and you know from that point on, there's nothing these actresses can't do. 

Entry Filed under: Theater, Aspen, United Post