Withstanding the Test of Time

I am taking a playwriting workshop this term and writing a ten-minute play as part of the class. Last week I turned in a pitch for my play; this week all of us in the workshop are critiquing everyone's  pitches. We also had to read and blog about Beth Henley's play, Crimes of the Heart, and how techniques that she used may be helpful with our own plays. There's a Works Cited section at the bottom even though I didn't quote from the play. I simply wanted to acknowledge the version of the script I read this week. Here's what I wrote for the class:

I first read Crimes of the Heart the year that it was produced on Broadway. I was a Theatre major at St. Louis University, and it was a play about women in a time when there weren't necessarily a lot of great roles for female actors; a lot of people in the department were doing scene work from this play. The first thing that struck me about this play were the characters: they were all women I have known in my life and they were all women I saw a piece of myself in. I am not from the south and do not have any sisters, but I really liked this play when I read it the first time; I still do.

I like that Henley made the setting of the play in the kitchen of the MaGrath house. Kitchen are the places where people, especially family, gather. The moment the curtain goes up, the audience is informed that this will be an intimate play; it's a good foundation for the other spectacle elements of the play that she cannot control, such as the actors' performances and the set. The ten minute play I pitched takes place in the parlor of a Bed & Breakfast inn for much the same reason: my play will explore family in an intimate context but in a slightly more public one.

My play will have all female characters who are lesbians and I have worried about distinguishing them from one another since they are friends with similar interests. In Crimes of the Heart, Henley effectively uses the sisters as foils for each other and I think that is a good approach for me to take as well. Lenny, Meg, and Babe have common family experiences as well as being sisters. Despite the commonalities, Henley wrote them as women who have made different life choices; they have different personalities, and the dysfunction in their family provides ample opportunity to show those differences.

It's no surprise to me that this play won a Pulitzer: it uses all of the elements of drama effectively. It's a play that still speaks to me even though it's been over thirty years since the first time I read it.

Works Cited

Henley, Beth. “Crimes of the Heart.” Plays from the Contemporary American Theater. Ed. Brooks McNamara. New York: Signet Classic, 2002.