From Nashville City Paper 09/25/2003:

Review: 'Crimes' sets the laughter free
By LEO SOCHOCKI, Lifestyle Correspondent

Beth Henley has created several works that allow the audience to laugh at the preposterous ability humans have for turning what would otherwise be an innocuous situation into the most absurd set of circumstances. In these she's managed to personify what I've found to be one of the South's most endearing characteristics: the exposition of family eccentricities.

Case in point is Henley's play Crimes of the Heart. We're introduced to the MacGrath sisters, three girls whose lives diverge from what would be described as good Southern family tradition. It takes about 30 seconds to realize that their collective reality is a little removed from the ideal. Rep artistic director David Grapes' interpretation of Beth Henley's Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy stars Nan Gurley as Lenny MacGrath, Denise Hicks as Meg, and Amy Tribbey as Babe.

The sisters convene for Lenny's birthday at the family home in Mississippi where Lenny cares for her ailing grandfather. Lenny, the oldest sister, has never married and frets over her "shrunken ovaries." Meg, the wild child, has an underwhelming singing career and a long list of ex-boyfriends. Babe is fresh out of jail having shot her senator husband. She tells her sisters that she did it because she "didn't like his looks." The truth is soon divulged and we learn that she was protecting her underage lover, a 15-year-old African American. Did I mention that poor old Granddaddy is dying because of "all those veins that keep poppin' in his head?"

Given the family's long history of adultery, scandal, and tragedy, including their mother's well-publicized suicide, the reunited siblings have a lot to talk about. The family reunion is made that much more interesting when nasty cousin Chick Boyle (Martha Wilkinson) throws her two cents into the comedic mix. The picture is completed with Meg's old boyfriend, Doc Porter (Jeremy Childs), and Brandon Boyd as Barnette Lloyd, Babe's just out of law school attorney.

While the MacGrath sisters are having a bad day, the audience is in for a treat. The Rep has created a wonderful production that almost never lets up in its hilarious intensity. Driven by Henley's tremendous dialogue, this play careens through three full acts of familial idiosyncrasy. The two intermissions are necessary just to catch your breath.

The show is propelled by the performances of Gurley, Hicks and Tribbey. The sisters create an ensemble bond that displays an abiding love and care despite their dysfunctional background. Gurley brings a fragile, emotionally brittle quality to the role of the repressed Lenny. Hicks is perfect as the brash, straightforward Meg. Indeed, she occasionally bowls you over with her performance. As Babe, Tribbey is the most complex of the three. Her quirky innocence is both touching and hilarious. You wonder at times if the girl isn't crazy. Then you think about it for a minute and realize that of course she is.

Not to be outdone, the supporting cast displays every bit of the comedic ability held by the sisters. Wilkinson is at her best in this show. Chick is a big-haired pain. When she receives her comeuppance at the end of a broom, the audience all but falls on the floor. Both Boyd and Childs, while rightfully in the background, maintain the audience's interest and offer characters that are funny, well defined, and hold depth and nuance. The end result is a constant ebb and flow of laughter. The audience is rarely silent and often thunderous in its reception of the performance.

If the remainder of the Rep's season maintains the polish and level of quality that we have in Crimes ofthe Heart, Nashville theater audiences are in for a good year.