Theater Reviews—

LaBute’s Work Gets The Excellent Treatment It

Deserves At TheatreWorks New Milford

By Julie Stern

NEW MILFORD — Neil LaBute writes a mean play. And he’s awfully good at what he does.

His works for film and stage explore the dynamics of contemporary relationships between the sexes as well as between friends, with a realism that combines scathing humor with gratuitous cruelty. His skill is demonstrated by the extent to which he seduces the audience into identifying with the situation, and drawing vicarious satisfaction with the way things seem to be going- until…

Master directors Bill Hughes and Sonnie Osborne have taken a top-notch ensemble cast and put together a riveting production of LaBute’s The Shape of Things, now in production at TheatreWorks New Milford.

Set on and around the campus in a small Midwest college town, The Shape of Things tells the story of Adam, a nerdy 22-old English major, who becomes involved with Evelyn, a cheerfully assertive art student who is finishing up her graduate degree.

As the relationship deepens to realize his happiest fantasies, Adam finds himself growing more attractive in his appearance. Under his new girlfriend’s tutelage, he gets a cooler hairdo, sheds his thick glasses for contacts, loses some weight and buffs up in the gym. Not only does all this do wonders for his self-esteem, but it draws the attention of his best friend, Phil, and Phil’s fiancée, Jenny, who is very pretty, but culturally dim.

Phil and Jenny are disconcerted by what they see as Evelyn’s Pygmalion-like makeover of their long-time buddy. In part they question her motives, and make a point of worrying over Adam’s deepening state of besottedness.

Then there is also the element of jealousy; Phil, in particular, had enjoyed his obvious superiority, as the acknowledged alpha male, and he begins to let this hang out in the form of rougher teasing and sarcastic insults. The audience, following all this attentively, is alert to all the undercurrents, as Adam is caught between his best friends – whose faults now seem glaringly obvious – and his lover, who says little (but he knows how she feels).

Meanwhile, Evelyn’s suggestions become more extreme, even as her sexual enticements become bolder. She urges him to have a cosmetic procedure done on his nose to make him even better looking. While he goes along with it, Adam is embarrassed enough to lie to the others, claiming he hurt himself in a fall. Thus, the straight-arrow good boy begins to learn the practice of lying, and so, along with the contours of his outer appearance, the shape of his inner personality begins to change.

When the show reaches its ultimate denouement, cries of “omigod” reveal an audience that is openmouthed with astonishment and shock.

Jeremiah Maestas as Adam, Shannon Bolcer as Evelyn, Keir Hansen as Philip, and Brett Galotta as Jenny are all absolutely terrific in their portrayal of highly believable characters. The play itself can either be seen as a disturbingly realistic vision of the ways and whys that people hurt each other, or, it can also be taken as an inquiry into the nature and demands of art, a question which LaBute cleverly works into the ending.

Either way, this is a serious, funny, disturbing piece of theater that is handled with TheatreWorks usual standard of excellence.