![]() Centered on the three McGrath sisters in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, who are “having a bad day, a very bad day”, the play flows like a photo album that begins innocently enough, but reveals more and more comically tragic situations as one turns each page. ![]() Like any black comedy-Southern or otherwise- Crimes of the Heart is a stew of comic ingredients bubbling in a tragic broth. One of those productions now belongs to Flying Anvil Theatre and their excellent current staging-directed by Jayne Morgan-that opened last weekend for a run through March 24. Playwright Beth Henley, a native of Jackson, Mississippi, understood the fine line that one must walk between comedy and tragedy in her play, Crimes of the Heart, a work that won her the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1981 and that has had regular productions ever since. Adding comedy to the quiet pathos of Southern Gothic, however, has not always been easy for novelists and playwrights keen on avoiding the pitfalls of cheap character mockery. ![]() The tradition of Southern Gothic literature from Faulkner, O’Connor, Cormac McCarthy, Tennessee Williams, and many others, runs deep in our consciousness, throwing open the shutters and exposing the dusty rooms of cultural decay, and the dusty lives of those that hide behind false honor, desperation, and failed aspirations. ![]()
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