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Elizabeth Becker "Beth" Henley (born May 8, 1952, Jackson, Mississippi) is an American dramatist and actress. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1981 for her play, Crimes of the Heart (1978). She is a Southern playwright who writes primarily about women's issues and family. She is also a screenwriter who has written many film adaptations of her plays. She is critically acclaimed and recognized for her intertwining of both comic and serious moments in her pieces.

Early Life

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Beth Henley was born in in 1952 in Jackson Mississippi. She was one of four sisters born to Charles Boyce, an attorney, and Elizabeth Josephine Henley, an actress. Henley attended Murrah High School in Mississippi. After high school she went to Southern Methodist University where she was a member of their acting ensemble. While attending Southern Methodist, Henley completed her first play entitled Am I Blue? Henley graduated from Southern Methodist in 1974 with a BFA. From 1975-1976, she taught playwrighting at the University of Illinois (Urbana) and the Dallas Minority Repertory Theater.

In 1976 Henley moved to Los Angeles and began work on her play Crimes of the Heart

Career

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Henley's first play was a one act piece Am I Blue? which was written while she was in school at Southern Methodist University

Beth Henley's first and most well known play was Crimes of the Heart. It was her first professionally produced play. It opened at the Actors Theatre of Louisville-where it was staged and declared co-winner of a new American play contest[1] - and then moved to New York and was produced by the Manhattan Theatre Club. Crimes of the Heart won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, as well as the award for Best American Play of 1981 from the New York Drama Critics' Circle. The play also earned Henley a Tony Award nomination, and her screenplay for the film version of Crimes of the Heart was nominated for an Oscar as Best Adapted Screenplay.

Influences

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Henley was most inspired by her upbringing in Southern Mississippi in a large household. Henley has stated that growing up with 3 sisters was a major inspiration for her play Crimes of the Heart.

Focus

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Henley's first six plays are set in the Deep South: two and Louisiana and four in Mississippi. [2] These locations are linked to Henley's southern background and childhood in Mississippi. Consequently themes of her drama are tied to small town values and the importance of love. Henley particularly focuses on how these themes affect the female characters in terms of identity and expression. Dominant themes include:

  • The value of love with family love providing support more often than romantic love [1]
  • Family ties in the domestic realm and how both this and society values define and confine female characters [2]
  • Socially constructed desires and their impact on gender identity [2]

Henley views her characters as examples of the repercussions of modern society and representative of the alientation, pain, and suffering that reflect the human condition. Her plays explore the dichotomy within individuals that seek happiness but are betrayed by modern civilization. Henley's notion that neurotic behavior is endemic to modern civilization stems from Freud's psychoanalytic theory. Her Southern sense of the grotesque and absurd experienced in daily existence have caused some critics to compare Henley to other Southern Writers such as Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor. This attitude has caused Henley to be classified in the Southern Gothic genre. [3]

Henley's writing style has evolved throughout her career. The plays of the 1980's are characterized as naturalistic and dramatize the relationship between the interior self and the exterior world. The characters are outsiders at risk and by virtue of their nonconformity risk being unable to share their feelings, insights, and experiences with others because they are alone, punished for their difference. They risk being institutionally isolated in a prison or asylum because they are so alone, so outside behavioral norms, that their actions warrant their removal from society. Hope exists in the search for a kindred soul. [1] The plays of the 1990's are typified as experimental and moving beyond the traditional settings and themes of her earlier work. These plays explore sturucture and the concepts of time with action occuring in a fragmentary way, spanning amounts of time, and/or occuring in epiosodic succession. This is clearly seen in Abundance, the first play not set in the South. Henley applies a new technique in these plays: structuring action around a gap and subsequent references which cast doubt on the action of the absent scene. Henley begins to mix genres, such as play noir and post-modern parody, and integrates repeated verbal and visual images across genres with the theme of love dominating as well as exploring the theme of denial. Henley later attempts to reconcile themes of love and imagination in Revelers and employs ancient theatre techniques, such as a prologue, in the title and structure of the play. A recurring feature in all of her plays, Henley brings together a collection of individuals who cling to the self-images and experiences that give them their identity. [1]

Criticism

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Some critics have faulted Henley for locating her women characters within the home-a place that has both defined and confined them in negative ways-without offering avenues for either re-visioning or escape.[2]

Personal Life

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For many years Henley dated actor, writer and director Stephen Tobolowsky.

Awards

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Beth Henley's Awards
Award Year
Nominated for Oscar 1987
Pulitzer Prize for Drama 1980-81
Co-winner of the New American Play Contest N/A
Tony Nomination N/A



Nominated for an Oscar in 1987 for "Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium" for her screenplay of Crimes of the Heart

Co-winner of the New American Play Contest

Puliter Prize for Drama for Crimes of the Heart

Tony nomination for Crimes of the Heart

List of Works

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Plays


Screenplays

Refrences

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  1. Beth Henley: A Casebook http://muse.jhu.edu.libezp.lib.lsu.edu/journals/theatre_journal/v056/56.4hewett.html
  2. The Plays of Beth Henley: A Critical Study. http://muse.jhu.edu.libezp.lib.lsu.edu/journals/modern_drama/v051/51.1.paige.html
  3. Understanding Beth Henley. http://muse.jhu.edu.libezp.lib.lsu.edu/journals/modern_drama/v051/51.3.plunka.html
  4. news articles recent http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/h/beth_henley/index.html
  5. http://www.mswritersandmusicians.com/writers/beth-henley.html
  6. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0377107/
  7. http://solomon.nadr.alexanderstreet.com/cgi-bin/asp/philo/nadr/authoridx.pl?docauthorid=per0028297&showfullrecord=ON
  8. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0377107/bio
  9. http://www.slashfilm.com/category/features/slashfilmcast/the-tobolowsky-files/
  1. ^ a b c d Andreach, Robert (2006). Understanding Beth Henley. Columbia, South Carolina: University Of South Carolina.
  2. ^ a b c d Karen L. Laughlin. Perry, Carolyn (ed.). "The History of Southern Women's Literature". Southern Literary Studies. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press: 588–593.
  3. ^ Plunka, Gene (July 3, 2006). "Freudian Psychology and Beth Henley's Popular Culture Satire: Signature". The Journal of Popular Culture.

Bibliography

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Andreach, Robert J. Understanding Beth Henley. Columbia: University of South Carolina, 2006. Print.

Perry, Carolyn, and Mary Weaks-Baxter. . The History of Southern Women's Literature. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 2002. Print. “Beth Henley” by Karen Laughlin.

McTague, Sylvia Skaggs. Ed. The Muse upon My Shoulder: Discussions of the Creative Process . Cranbury, NJ : Associated University Presses, 2004. Print.

Sources that still need to be looked into

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Abbot, Dorothy, ed. Mississippi Writer: Reflections on Childhood and Youth.Vol 4: Drama. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1991.

Beth Henley: Signature of a Non-Stop Playwright. Backstage. May 24, 1995: 23.

Britt, Ann. Becker Family Night at John Golden Theater. Daily Leader. Nov. 20, 1981.

Collions, William B. Henley's "Crimes of the Heart" Shows Promise on Broadway."Jackson Daily News. Nov. 6, 1981.

Draper, Norm. Henley Wins Prestigious Drama Award. Clarion- Ledger Daily News. Dec. 31, 1978.

Harbin, Billy J. Familial Bonds in the Plays of Beth Henley. The Southern Quarterly: A Journal of the Arts in the South. Spring 1987: 81-94.

Hardin, Clay. CCP Host Real Killer in "Crimes." Madison County Herald. Oct. 31, 1971.

Henley, Beth. Crimes of the Heart. New York, New York: Penguin Group, 1986.

Jackson, Robyn. Crimes of the Pen: Henley's New Play Needs Heart Transplant."Hattiesburg American. Dec. 29, 1991.

Lesniak, James G., ed. Contemporary Authors. Vol 32. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1991. 58 vols.

McDonnell, Lisa J. Diverse Similitude: Beth Henley and Marsha Norman. The Southern Quarterly: A Journal of the Arts in the South. Spring 1987: 95-104.

Myers, Leslie R. "Abundance" makes its way to stage in Jackson--at last.Clarion Ledger. Feb. 23, 1992.

Shepard, Alan Clarke. Aborted Rage in Beth Henley's Women. Modern Drama. March, 1993: 96.

Shirley, Aleda, et al. eds. Beth Henley. Mississippi Writers: Directory and Literary Guide. University, MS: The University of Mississippi, 1995. 57.

Suter, Jessica. "Crimes of the Heart." http://www.halycon.com.jesuter/crimes.htm.

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