Four evenings a week, I enter the cluttered, eclectic, slightly worn down kitchen of the Magrath sisters in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, the scene of Crimes of the Heart.  There is a stove, a refrigerator into which incriminating evidence gets thrown and a kitchen table and chairs where the bonds of family are tested over lemonade, a bowl of oatmeal, and a frosting laden birthday cake.  Of course, if I believe only what my eyes are capable of seeing, there is nothing but blue tape on the floor to mark the room’s dimensions and appliances as well as a few wooden chairs.  On the surface, I appear to be in an empty performance hall.  Add six talented actors, one intelligent and experienced director and two dedicated stage managers to the mix and perceptions start to change.  Things are no longer as they seem.  Our creative minds and inexhaustible imaginations transport us back to the wake of Hurricane Camille, where fallen debris and broken off shingles aren’t the only damage that need to be assessed and repaired by this family.

            Eventually, with the help of carpenters, sound experts, lighting designers, costume and makeup artists and one properties master with a lot on her plate, our empty space becomes the reality of the 1970’s south.  For our efforts to be truly realized though, we count on the audience to suspend their disbelief and travel with us to this place and time where gender roles are changing, societal norms are being tested and the only skeletons meant to leave the closet are those that decorate a home in late October.  To ignore the limitless possibilities of art and the imagination, to remain firmly grounded in the here and now, to be confined by the four walls of a performance space—these are “crimes” and as you’ll soon see, far too much must already be accounted for.

Posted by Adam Musto, Crimes of the Heart Assistant Stage Manager