Crimes of the Heart by Beth Henley (1981)

TW: Mental Illness, Domestic Violence Mentioned, Sex with a Minor Mentioned

 

SYNOPSIS

            It’s Lenny’s birthday her younger sister Meg has come to town because their youngest sister Babe is out on bail for shooting her husband Zackery and no one remembers to celebrate Lenny, not even their cousin Chick that’s lived near Lenny her whole life. There’s a lot of unpacking in this play mostly stemming from their mother’s suicide when they were girls, big news for a small town in Mississippi. Lenny has spent so much time taking care of other people, namely Old Grandaddy, that she hasn’t got to live any of her own life. Old Grandaddy slips into a coma, Lenny chases Chick out of the house, and finally summons the nerve to pursue a relationship with a man from Memphis. Meg left to pursue a career singing with no luck. She’s the one that found their mother and has sense been obsessed with withstanding all the horrors of the world with numb disinterest only to find out she’s still capable of feeling even after all this time. The biggest story in the play is that Babe’s husband is the biggest lawyer in town that she shot after he caught her having sex with a fifteen year old Black boy. Babe is being defended by a new upstart lawyer that has an unspoken vendetta against her husband and it’s hinted that it’s over his crush on Babe. At the end of the play he’s come up with a way to settle out of court but Zackery has threatened to have Babe committed. Babe tries unsuccessfully to commit suicide but Meg stops her. The plays ends with the girls surrounding Lenny after she’d made a wish on the birthday cake her sisters got for her.

 

CHARACTERS

Lenny Magrath – 30, White, Eldest Sister

Chick Boyle – 29, White, Sisters’ First Cousin

Doc Porter – 30, White, Meg’s Old Boyfriend

Meg Magrath – 27, White, Middle Sister

Babe Botrelle – 24, White, Youngest Sister

Barnette Lloyd – 26, White, Babe’s Lawyer

 

POSSIBLE MONOLOGUES

            Barnette has a sort of monologue when he’s introduced about exactly why he thinks he’s the best man for the job representing Babe against Zackery.

            Babe has better monologues. There’s her first where she explains exactly what led her to shooting her husband that comes at the end of the first act. In the second act she goes into more detail and it can be truly comedic as a stand alone monologue to her a woman go on about how after she shot her husband she made a big pitcher of lemonade going into way too much detail about how she made it and wiped her mouth afterwards. She even offers some to Zackary and when she takes it too him Babe has a hard time understanding that he wants her to call an ambulance. Only at the end does she have the realization that it might make her look bad. Then she has another dramatic one when she realizes why their mother hung her beloved cat with her when she killed herself.

            Meg explains her own psychotic break and how she didn’t come home for Christmas because she was in LA County Hospital’s psychiatric ward. She has another monologue in anther scene after coming home from her date with the married Doc. It’s a very Blanche Devereaux monologue where Meg talks about running away with Doc and pulling him from his wife and half-Yankee children, but he never asks her. She should be devastated but she’s just happy that she can still feel genuine desire.

PERSONAL THOUGHTS

            The only reason the characters in the play need to be white is for a line about Willie Jay, the boy Babe has an affair with. Because he’s Black, Lenny assumes that Babe is a liberal and she instead says she’s always been democratic. Babe also worries that Willie Jay’s involvement would get him into a lot of trouble so Barnette has him move North for protection. If those lines are dropped and his leaving is made to be about his age as opposed to his race then the characters can be played by any ethnicity. This would mean altering the script so take that how you will.

            Regardless, I do enjoy this play even though it feels like it stops short. The girls are happy in the final moments, but for all the talk about Babe’s trial, it feels like the audience would be told if it was actually settled or not. Barnette has a plan but we don’t know for sure that it works, especially since Zackery’s call about sending Babe to a psych ward comes after Barnette decree. It’s clear that Lenny and Charlie from Memphis are a good match and it’s clear that Meg has found her will to sing again, but every time I read the play I want to see Barnette and Babe’s moment where she free and has a chance to return his affections or deny them. Of course the problem is that court cases aren’t settled in the defendant’s grandfather’s kitchen, so the moment was always dead in the water. This is a very Southern play full of comforts and hilarious bickering.

 

 

Over the River and Through the Woods by Joe DiPietro (1998)

TW: Panic Attack, Dementia

 

SYNOPSIS

            Tengo Famiglia. Literally “I support a family” but for Nick’s Italian immigrant grandparents it means “I have a reason for being alive.” The four grandparents and Nick are the only part of the family left in New Jersey and Nick’s time has come to leave. His grandparents don’t take it well and decide to set him up with a girl to give him a reason not to take the job on the West Coast. Nick likes her but reacts badly to being set up which Caitlin doesn’t appreciate. After blowing up at his interfering grandparents, Nick has a panic attack and spends two weeks on their couch recovering. For 29 years they’ve all had dinner together every Sunday, but it’s only in these two weeks that Nick really starts to see his grandparents for who they are. They all cherish each other and both sides reluctantly agree that Nick should follow his aspirations. Grandpa Nunzio knew Nick would stay if he told him that he was sick, but he chose not to hold Nicky back. Shortly after Nick takes the job, he returns to Jersey for Nunzio’s funeral, but in having gone he’s found himself. His grandparents pass one after the other, but Nick finds peace within his new family, having married and now expecting their first child.

 

CHARACTERS

Frank – Elderly Italian Immigrant

Nick – Italian-American, Young Adult

Aida – Elderly Italian Immigrant

Caitlin – Irish-American, Young Adult

Nunzio – Elderly Italian Immigrant

Emma - Elderly Italian Immigrant

 

POTENTIAL MONOLOGUES

            The play opens with two shorts monologues, the better stand alone one is Frank’s. He talks about leaving Italy and the meaning I behind Tengo Famiglia. It could easily be combined with his next line about how hard his first six weeks were. Frank has another later in the scene about how hard he had to work to get his 1941 DeSoto and how buying that car made him confident that he could make a life for himself in America. Then he has a big, long monologue about his childhood in Italy and discovering just how poor his family was. It was only when Frank returned with his then new wife to buy all the toys he wanted when he was a child that his mother revealed that his father sent him away so that he could afford all the things his parents couldn’t give him.

            Nicky’s first monologue that isn’t setting the scene is him chewing out his grandparents for suffocating him, but it ends with him collapsing from a panic attack so it’ll need a bit a zhushing to pull off. His last monologue that closes the show is beautiful to me. He thanks his grandparents for all their hard work and that they elevated him to place so far removed from their own lives that it became difficult to relate to each other, but that they never stopped trying.

            Emma also has a nice monologue about the difference between what a good life meant when she was Nicky’s age versus all the expectations he’s under now.

 

PERSONAL THOUGHTS

            I just adore this play. There’s something about immigrant stories that warms my heart, especially when they can keep their culture alive while navigating America’s amalgamation. There’s so much love in this play and that’s where the conflict lies. To love your people and where you come from so much that it hurts to move on no matter how good the opportunity that lies ahead. The way Nicky’s grandparents try so hard to understand him and that as much as he argues with him, he struggles with the idea of not being close enough to see them every week, is very touching.

 

 

 

The Primary English Class by Israel Horovitz (1976)

 

TW: Racial Slurs, Xenophobia, Rape Mention, Inappropriate Groping, Elder Abuse, Suicide Mention

 

SYNOPSIS

            An Italian and a Frenchman both believe that each other is the teacher for this adult ESL class, but each only speaks their native language. For those of us that only speak English, a Translator explains some, but not all, of the foreign language lines. The two men are soon joined by a German, an elderly Chinese woman, and a young Japanese woman before their teacher, Ms. Debbie Watsba arrives. There are several running jokes about their names all meaning wastebasket and comes from their old Mesopotamian ancestors, the restaurant downstairs being absolutely terrible, and that they’ve all had a run in with a mugger. It soon becomes clear that Wastba only appears to be prepared to teach the class and has no idea how to actually teach her class where no one speaks the same language and her students literally don’t know even the simplest of English sentences. The trouble truly begins when Wastba drops her contact and goes to rinse it off in the bathroom. She mistakes the Polish janitor for a molester and locks the classroom door to keep everyone safe, however Pong has been given several glasses of water and desperately needs to use the restroom. Neither woman can explain themselves, but Pong successfully escapes and the class is weary of a teacher that would push an old woman. None of the students understand what’s happening and Wastba has no way to explain other than repeating herself in English more and more frantically. She begins to physically punish the students for speaking in their native languages and soon they choose to leave the class fully understanding that doing so means braving what they think is a mugger as well as losing all chances of livelihood in America. The janitor finally gets into the room and explains in Polish that he was banging on the door because when Wastba attacked him in the bathroom, she stole his mop and he needed it to finish his work. Wastba, now alone, is dejected believing her worth to lie in accomplishing the one small task of teaching a simple phrase. The play ends with Pong finally returning from the bathroom.

 

CHARACTERS

Smiednik – Polish Janitor, Stout

Patumiera – Italian, Movie Star Type

LaPoubelle – French, Handsome, Nearly Bald, Diminutive, Wears Tight Clothes

Translator – No Physical Appearance in Show

Mulleimer – German, Thick Eyeglases

Mrs. Pong – Chinese, Elderly, Small, Runs

Yoko Kuzukago – Japanese, Young Woman, Beautiful

Debbie Wastba – White American

 

POSSIBBLE MONOLOGUES

            There aren’t very good examples of monologues that work well on their own. The closest is Wastba’s introduction and her lesson plan, but from personal experience I can tell you that the comedic elements don’t land as well without scene partners. Each of the students that leaves the class give a short monologue about how terrible Wastba is and that they’d rather face death or disgrace than continue to be subject to her cruelty, but they’re all done in native languages with translation and don’t work well outside the context of the play.

 

PERSONAL THOUGHTS

            Honestly, this play was hard to get through. I think it’s an example of how difficult it can be for plays to withstand the test of time, especially one with so many comedic elements, and this one adds the difficulty of language barriers. There are many lines that aren’t translated at all. Theatres attempting the play would need to do a good bit of research to make sure the actors know what their saying or hire bilingual actors, and truly bilingual actors at that. I’m studying German but Mulleimer uses slang and contractions that were a bit tricky to understand after two solid years of studying the language and a trip to Germany. I assume the same is true for the other foreign characters.

            There are some red flags in the play that are a product of the time it was written, like Mrs. Pong and Yoko being called “Oriental,” but there are other slurs that were fully intended as slurs in 1976 like calling Patumiera a wop, both said by Wastba. Then there are things in the play that just don’t land well. Wastba has a bit of a monologue explaining how her sister was molested and the man she went to for help ended up molesting Wastba. It certainly helps to explain why she assumed a janitor in the woman’s restroom had nefarious intentions rather than literally just doing his job, but it’s one of many examples in the play that left me having mixed feelings. A lot of the play feels like a farce, yet there are monologues like this and LaPoubelle’s decree that he’s going to kill himself because of all he’ll lose from not learning English, not once but twice. The play is listed as a drama, but features scenes where Pong is force-fed water and tea after nearly fainting, LaPoubelle and Patumiera exaggeratedly flirt with Yoko and Wastba, Pong and Wastba have a whole showdown where Pong sprints and leaps from desks just to use the bathroom, and Mulleimer spends about 45 minutes blind as a bat and accidentally groping Wastba after she took his glasses to use as an example.

            I’ll include an excerpt from the New York Times’ Feb. 17, 1976 review by Clive Barnes that sort of helps get at my feelings about the play:

It is possibly true that Mr. Horovitz is better at setting a situation than plotting a play. For all its humor, even with its suggestion of an allegory about noncommunication, “The Primary English Class” is more of a dramatic sketch than a drama. It is fairly brief„ and, although Mr. Horovitz maintains the wit and indeed the complete conceit, remarkably well—largely by introducing more and more absurd characters, a method that does have a kind of climactic effect—the play is still somewhat thin in its texture. I was reminded of another sketchlike play by Mr. Horovitz called “Line,” which was nothing but the behavioral patterns of characters standing in line.

Yet the humor in “The Primary English Class” is somehow even more basic than that in the earlier play. It finds its roots in the very human feeling that if you speak your own language very loudly and very slowly a foreigner will in some miraculous way understand. As a result we have this slowtalking Tower of Babel of a play, where everyone is intent in making him or herself understood to everyone else. It really is a gem of an idea.

 

            The play has an air of being unfinished and although it opens an audience up to conversations about immigration and emersion, I find that I’m not 100% sure what the play itself or Isreal Horovitz is trying to say about any of these things. Is this an argument for learning the country’s primary language before immigrating or that Americans need more compassion when welcoming immigrants into our folds? Does it depend on the individual production or is there an intended interpretation of the play?