In the following favorable review o/Crimes of the Heart, Rich comments on Henley's ability to draw her audience into the lives and surroundings of her characters. Rich argues that Henley "builds from a foundation of wacky but consistent logic until she's constructed afunhouse of perfect-pitch language and ever-accelerating misfortune,"

Rich is an American drama critic.

Beth Henley's Crimes of the Heart ends with its three heroines the MaGrath sisters of Hazelhurst, Miss. helping themselves to brick-sized hunks of a chocolate birthday cake. The cake, a "super deluxe" extravaganza from the local bakery, is as big as the kitchen table, and the sisters laugh their heads off as they dig in. The scene is the perfect capper for an evening of antic laughter yet it's by no means the sum of Crimes of the Heart. While this play overflows with infectious high spirits, it is also, unmistakably...