Neil LaBute's "Reasons To Be Pretty" opening

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Neil LaBute's newest play, "Reasons to Be Pretty" is going to be running in NY at the MCC Theater in a few weeks, and readers of one of the feminist blogs I read regularly, Feministing, have been offered a discount if they're interested in tickets.

If I wasn't currently a giant baby house on legs I'd be doing everything in my power to be there, since I love LaBute's work (ignoring, of course, his 2006 remake of "The Wicker Man" which I shall henceforth never speak of again). Although it's often perceived as controversial and usually pretty hard to stomach, I appreciate his writing for it's honesty. Most of it can be classified as dark comedies dealing with the capacity for evil that reside in all of us, no matter how righteous we may struggle to be. "Reasons to Be Pretty" is the last installment of a trilogy LaBute's worked on (the two other's being "The Shape of Things" and "Fat Pig") that deals with our society's obsession with physical perfection, how it manipulates weaknesses in all of us regardless of how we look, and what it costs us all in the long run.

I was first exposed to LaBute after I caught "Bash: Latter Day Plays" on HBO a long time ago, late at night when I couldn't sleep. What I remember most (aside from honestly almost vomiting during "A Gaggle of Saints") was how deeply "Medea Redux" touched me on this universal, purely female level. (What his perfection in writing about women could say about men, based on the other two plays, is too scary for me to comment on.) I'm constantly impressed by how well LaBute writes women (as complicated, emotionally textured and human), though he's been accused in the past of misogyny. Even the "merciless" and "cruel" Evelyn in "The Shape of Things" was relateable to me, in an almost uncomfortable way. Although I guess it can be argued that uncomfortable relating is sort of LaBute's shtick, it still really impresses me how well he taps into the darker, scarier parts of characters representing people who are perceived as "normal" and "good."

If you're in the area and want to check it out, you can use the link above to find a code that will knock some bucks off the price of admission. And let me know how it goes, too.