Review of Step Up Productions' Crimes of the Heart

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called Crimes of the Heart. It was by Beth Henley and it was directed by Brad Akin. It was about these three sisters Babe (Elizabeth Antonucci), Lenny (Sarah-Jayne Ashenhurst), and Meg (Amanda Powell), and their mother and their father had left them when they were very young. They are all grownups now and have come together because Babe has shot her husband. That isn't a very happy occasion, but they are trying to remember the good times too. And they are trying to help Babe get through what she's going through. But she is not the only person with problems. Meg has just lost a job singing in a night club and Lenny is working too hard with her grandpa and she is not having a very good love life. This play is about family bonds, loss, and trying to survive. I liked this play a lot. I thought it was very interesting and funny. You might think this stuff doesn't sound funny, but then because the things that happen are so weird and terrible it is just funny anyways.

Lenny I thought was the least depressing sister because she never attempts murder and she never attempts suicide and her ex-boyfriend isn't married with two kids. Then you think that she might be able to get her life together because the sisters help her out with the hard choices like calling her ex-boyfriend who she is still in love with. Also she chases her cousin Chick (Lindsey Pearlman) with a broom because she hates her so much and has never been able to show that. Chick is a very hatable character because she is very annoying and doesn't really care about people's problems. I found Chick hilarious because she was so terrible! The thing is, you see Lenny develop so much throughout the play. She begins being kind of shy and a scaredy cat and she ends up being forward and kind and not scared. At the very beginning, she didn't have a birthday cake on her birthday, so what she did was grab a cookie and stick a candle in it. It kept breaking apart which was so funny. But by the end she actually gets a cake from her sisters which shows that even though they forgot about her birthday, they still love her.

Babe was the youngest and she was the one who shot her husband. But that was because there was a teenage boy he was trying to hurt but then the teenage boy ran away and she wanted to kill herself but then she decided to shoot her husband. Everyone in the show thinks she is kind of crazy, and I kind of agree with them. One of the reasons they think she is crazy is that after she shoots her husband she makes lemonade. Death lemonade! But I think it was mostly because of her husband and how terrible her life is going right now that she acts crazy. So she is not actually crazy; she is just really depressed. I've never seen a comedy with such a depressing main character. I liked the show still, but it was still very depressing. It makes you think about your life choices and death and guilt, and all that kind of stuff. She tries to kill herself more than once, and the ways are pretty ridiculous. But it is still very sad because it shows how much she doesn't understand what she is doing. I liked the character, though. This is more of a dark-comedy character, because even though she is funny sometimes, she is still super sad.

Meg is the middle sister and she was a singer at a night club. I also thought she was one of the funnier characters, but she still had a quite depressing life. One of the saddest things is when she finds out the love of her life Doc (Drew Johnson) is still married. At the beginning she isn't very nice to her sisters because she has been away so long. But then the thing is that by the end you see that she is loving these girls more than when the play started. I liked how she took all the calls from the lawyer Barnette (Will Crouse), but she didn't really know who he was. I thought that was hilarious. And then I thought it was really funny when Babe came down when Barnette would still be in earshot, because it was a screen door, and Meg said "He's gone now" because he must of totally heard her.

People who would like this show are people who like sisters, death lemonade, and breakable birthday cookies. I think people should go see this show. If you like dark comedy, this is definitely for you! I had fun at this show and I liked it.

Photos: Michael Brosilow