Dropping by Old Granddaddy's home in Hazelhurst, Mississippi, is quite an experience. The time is the early 1980s in Beth Henley's Crimes of the Heart. Lenny McGrath, 30 years old today, has been taking care of her ailing grandfather while her sisters, Meg and Babe, pursued other adventures. Granddaddy, hospitalized in serious condition, has inadvertently brought the three together.
At first blush, it is hard to believe these three could be sisters. Lenny (Kristianne Kurner), the oldest, short on social skills, has almost a pathological fear of intimacy. She also has been stuck in this backwater village. Babe (Amanda Sitton), the youngest, can't seem to keep her hands off of men or the gun she shot her husband with. Meg (Jessica John), a failing singer, has just returned from Hollywood. When we see the three together they show that special bonding sisters have, even as their differences are a constant source of conflict.
Social-climbing cousin, Chick Boyle (Wendy Waddell), would like to see her cousins become more like her. Bothered by her paint-eating kids, she blusters in for a few moments in the first act. Later, with Granddaddy failing, she returns concerned about her possible inheritance. While she may have the best interests of her cousins in mind, her bluntness and harshness create continuing ill will.
Babe, a true innocent, has very little control over her emotions, which are easily altered by just a word or a look. Her fresh-from-the-bar-exam attorney, Barnett Lloyd (Daren Scott), finds that his client has serious problems besides the charge of shooting her husband. He also finds that she holds a very special charm for him.
Direct from her Hollywood disaster is Meg. While both her sisters dress plainly, she brings a California glitz back home. Both in demeanor and dress she gives the appearance, the aura, of a loose woman. However, she brings a spark to her sisters as well as her own style of dysfunctionality. She even has a short involvement with a former "friend," Doc Porter (Francis Gercke), even though he is married.
