Review: CRIMES OF THE HEART at Order Chaos Theater Company

Beth Henley’s CRIMES OF THE HEART, the 1981 Pulitzer Prize-winning dark comedy, is one of those plays that walks a tightrope between tragic dysfunction and offbeat charm. Set in Hazlehurst, Mississippi in 1974, it offers a Southern-fried snapshot of three eccentric sisters grappling with a lifetime of familial burdens, romantic misadventures, and societal constraints. It’s a world where the line between laughter and heartbreak is so thin it all but disappears.

Order Chaos Theatre Company’s production is earnest in its attempt to capture the play’s bruised heart and tangled humor. At its best, it delivers on Henley’s vision of resilience and longing for something better. But this rendition feels more like a sketch of CRIMES OF THE HEART than the full portrait — sincere, sporadically effective, but not quite lived-in.

Much of the action takes place in the kitchen of Old Granddaddy’s house — a domestic crucible where the McGrath sisters reunite after the youngest, Babe, has just shot her abusive husband. It’s a return home that forces each sister to confront long-suppressed pains and reckon with the choices they’ve made — or failed to make — in a world that offered few real ones to women.

To fully land, CRIMES requires a delicate balance of tonal agility — the comedy needs to spring naturally from the characters’ absurdities, not their exaggerations, and the drama needs to unfold without melodrama. This is where the production struggles. The ensemble is undeniably animated, but their energy too often feels like performance rather than presence. Much of the acting is externalized — lines delivered with inflection but not always emotional grounding, movement that draws attention but doesn’t always serve character.

The emotional heart of the production rests largely on the shoulders of Megan Holcomb, whose portrayal of Lenny Magrath — the eldest sister — is the most grounded and affecting of the trio. When the play opens, it’s Lenny’s birthday, and she’s alone in the kitchen about to light a single candle in a cookie. It’s a simple act, almost childlike, and it instantly captures her world: a life of resignation, routine, and long-unmet longing.

Henley frames Lenny as the “old maid” of the family — a woman nearing thirty, in 1974 Mississippi terms already considered past her prime. She’s the caregiver, the self-sacrificing daughter who stayed behind to tend to their ailing grandfather and quietly absorbed everyone else’s crises. But beneath that dutiful exterior is a deep reservoir of yearning — for love, for freedom, for a life of her own. Holcomb brings a tremulous vulnerability to the role, allowing Lenny’s small acts of self-assertion to resonate deeply. Whether fumbling with the phone to call a potential suitor or finally confronting her sisters with long-suppressed resentment, Holcomb’s performance evokes not pity, but empathy.

It’s a portrayal that earns its emotional arc: by the end, when Lenny dares to imagine a future not dictated by obligation, there’s a glimmer of redemption that feels honest and hard-won. It’s one of the production’s most sincere and satisfying moments.

As Meg (Samantha Belle), the charismatic but emotionally untethered middle sister, and Babe (Kiley Bishop), the youngest whose fragility masks an impulsive defiance, the other two leads offer energized portrayals that suggest commitment, but not always clarity. Belle’s Meg, a once-promising singer now drifting through life, has moments that hint at deeper pain beneath her bravado, but the performance leans too heavily on surface gestures — a flash of charm here, a sarcastic aside there — without quite plumbing the emotional contradictions that define Meg’s return home.

Bishop’s Babe is more emotionally accessible, but her portrayal sometimes lacks the subtlety needed to fully realize a character who is both childlike and quietly radical. Babe’s act of violence is the catalyst for the entire play, yet here it registers more as a plot point than a fully realized moral or psychological rupture. The result is a performance that feels occasionally overstated, especially in moments that call for internal tension.

The Southern accents — always a risk — are generally consistent but tend to press too hard, occasionally tipping into self-consciousness. Likewise, several comedic beats feel manufactured rather than emerging organically from character or circumstance.

Christina Clodt delivers a sharp-edged turn as Chick Boyle, the sisters’ high-strung cousin and self-appointed guardian of Southern propriety. Chick is the kind of relative who shows up not to help, but to scold, fuss, and reinforce the gossip-laden moral order of Hazelhurst. While the role is often played for comic relief — and Clodt leans into that energy — her performance also underscores the emotional pressure cooker the sisters are navigating. At her best, Clodt taps into the brittle insecurity beneath Chick’s condescension, reminding us that even the most judgmental voices in this world are often acting out of fear: fear of scandal, fear of change, fear of not belonging. It’s a brisk, biting performance that adds just the right tension to the family stew.

The male characters — always peripheral in this female-driven story — are particularly underwhelming here, though their roles are by no means incidental. Barnette Lloyd, the eager young attorney defending Babe, is more than a legal advocate; he represents a flicker of idealism and the possibility of justice in a world that often denies it. His infatuation with Babe is meant to feel both sweet and a little naïve — a man projecting his own need to be a hero onto a woman who’s still trying to understand her own pain. In this production, however, that dynamic feels underdeveloped. Barnette’s idealism reads as one-note, lacking the complexity that might make his motivations more believable. Likewise, the racial implications of Babe’s alleged affair with a Black man — a crucial detail that could heighten the stakes of her defense and stir deeper tensions — are mentioned but never meaningfully explored, blunting what should be one of the play’s most volatile revelations.

Doc Porter, Meg’s former flame, is a subtler figure — a reminder of paths not taken and wounds still healing. Their reunion stirs a quiet tension between nostalgia and regret. Once a promising young man derailed by a stormy night and a bad decision, Doc now lives a quieter life, having chosen stability over passion. He’s emblematic of what might have been, had the world — and Meg — been different. Unfortunately, the performance here doesn’t fully tap into that layered emotional space. Doc comes off as emotionally muted, never quite showing the simmering history that makes his scenes with Meg so rich with unspoken longing.

These male roles aren’t designed to steal the show, but they are essential in revealing aspects of the sisters’ struggles — their yearning, their rebellion, their unmet emotional needs. Without that depth, the relationships at the heart of CRIMES OF THE HEART risk feeling unmoored.

Mark-Alan C. Clemente’s staging is competent but cautious, content to walk the lines of Henley’s script rather than find new ones to draw. Pacing is uneven, with emotional transitions feeling abrupt or unearned. The kitchen set, while functional, doesn’t fully capture the sense of decay or timelessness that might have grounded the story in a more authentic Southern Gothic atmosphere.

Still, even when the production falters, Henley’s script offers glimmers of poignant absurdity. The laughter that bubbles up from the Magrath sisters’ darkest moments — whether from a failed birthday celebration or an account of a botched suicide — still works its strange alchemy, revealing just how close despair and joy often sit in the same house.

At its core, CRIMES OF THE HEART is a play about women who were never taught how to dream beyond the walls of their home. In 1974 Mississippi, their choices are few, their hopes deferred, their acts of rebellion quiet but consequential. If this production doesn’t fully rise to the occasion, it still gives us glimpses of that ache — and the humor that makes it bearable. Ultimately, it’s a production that, like its characters, yearns for something more — and, at times, almost gets there.

CRIMES OF THE HEART runs through April 20th at:

Herberger Theater Center ~ The Kax Stage ~ https://herbergertheater.org/ ~ 222 East Monroe Street, Phoenix, Arizona ~ 602-252-8497

Order Chaos Theater Company ~ https://www.orderchaostheater.org/ ~ PO Box 975, Tolleson, AZ 5353 ~ ​Email: [email protected]

Photo credit to OCTC: Kiley Bishop as Babe Botrelle

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