Reviews 2002
Reviews 2002
✭✭✩✩✩
by Neil LaBute, directed by Jim Guedo
Canadian Stage, Berkeley Street Theatre, Toronto
September 26-October 19, 2002
"How to Lose Friends and Infuriate People"
The Canadian Stage production of "The Shape of Things", its Canadian première, makes for an unsatisfying evening. Hot young American playwright Neil LaBute is probably best know for writing and directing such films as "In the Company of Men" (1997) and "Nurse Betty" (2000). His 2001 play "The Shape of Things" shows him at his worst. Contrivance and pretense win out over realism and probability. To make matters worse, one actor in the cast of four is very weak and there are difficulties in both direction and design.
The action takes place at Mercy College somewhere in the American Midwest. Geeky, overweight Adam meets and falls for Evelyn, an art student working on her master's project. (Note the Biblical symbolism--later Evelyn offers Adam an apple.) Under Evelyn's tutelage Adam changes his hairstyle, starts eating healthier food, starts working out, loses 25 pounds, trades in his nerdy glasses for contacts and starts wearing stylish clothes. Adams calls Evelyn his Higgins. (Note reference to "My Fair Lady" and Shaw's "Pygmalion".) As he becomes more conventionally good-looking, Adam gains self-confidence and indulges in a momentary fling with Jenny, who is supposed to be marrying Phil, his male-chauvinist best friend. Things seem to go too far when Evelyn demands that Adam have a nose job. Phil calls Adam a Frankenstein, meaning of course the monster not the creator. (Note reference to Mary Shelley's novel.) Finally, Evelyn demands that to prove that he loves her, Adam must give up his two friends. Adam later refers to himself as Gregor Samsa. (Note the reference to Kafka's "The Metamorphosis".)
Up to this point the play is mildly interesting as a study of emotional manipulation among the twentysomethings. LaBute does well at capturing their language and attitudes. But, he wants to suggest that the story has greater profundity through self-congratulatory references to other authors. This is annoying enough. Worse is that the play leads to a trick ending. Not only is one character playing a trick on another but LaBute is playing a trick on the audience. The point of this trick is explained to us in the form of a lecture which is meant to leave is wondering about the relation of art to reality and what should and shouldn't be labelled art. Instead, we feel deceived and insulted that LaBute thinks we need to have the play's theme triple underlined to get it.
CanStage has naively for this Internet age posted a sign in the lobby asking its patrons not to reveal the ending to their friends. (Descriptions of LaBute's upcoming film of the play reveal the ending in their opening line.) Surprise endings as, say, in the film "The Sixth Sense" uncover a fact while progressively giving us all the information to work it out. LaBute simply hides this information and with it all the motivation for the character who plays the trick. It is also improbable. The character's trick can only work with the collusion of the faculty of a college which, as LaBute has demonstrated from the first scene, is far to conservative to permit such a thing. How Adam can suddenly afford the new clothes much less a nose-job when LaBute has emphasized he has no money, is unclear. So, too, LaBute ignores information he has presented to force the plot to reflect his theme.
What makes the already iffy evening more difficult to stomach is the flaw in the cast. Presumably to boost ticket sales, Amy Redford, daughter of the actor Robert Redford, has been parachuted in to play the key role of Evelyn. One could excuse this insult to Canadian talent if Redford, fille, were perfect for the part. But not only is she not perfect for the part, she shows little aptitude for acting on stage. The most obvious flaw is that she doesn't project. She speaks in a normal tone of voice as if she were in a movie which means that, given the pervasive soundtrack, she is frequently inaudible. Even when she is audible she not enunciate and her voice on its own is weak and does not suit a forceful, seductive character like Evelyn. Her facial expressions and gestural vocabulary are also limited. She does give Evelyn a certain meanness and intensity but this go for naught if she can't be heard.
In contrast, Allan Hawco is excellent as the poor schmuck Adam. He is remarkable in detailing Adam's step-by-step transformation from a shy, doughy geek to a more self-confident, trim hunk, while still retaining enough of his former characteristics like his goofy laugh to show us he is the same guy underneath. He makes us long to have Adam's puppy-dog devotion wane to see the coldness of Evelyn's manipulation. Hawco encompasses the wide emotional range the role demands and keeps us on his side from first to last.
Of Adam's two friends, Jacob Barker starts the misogynist jock Phil at too high a pitch so that it's hard to know what Jenny sees in him and when he later argues with Evelyn he has nowhere to go. As his character becomes more muted, Becker gives more nuance to what we thought was merely an obnoxious lout. Amy Price-Francis plays Phil's girlfriend Jenny like a jittery, more insecure version of Albee's Honey. Price-Francis command of conflicting emotions makes the scene in Act 2 where Jenny forces herself to stand up to Evelyn one the highpoint of the play.
As director, Jim Guedo has captured the feel of how the twentysomethings of today interact, their movements, stances, gestures, tones of voice. As designer, his costumes are all well-chosen. His set with its movable grey walls suggests the anonymity of modern college buildings, but a back pallet used to represent various interiors takes too long to be loaded, unloaded and moved to the front. To cover the set changes Guedo has modern magazine covers on the themes of makeovers to attract the opposite sex projected on a front screen. Since LaBute already hits us over the head with his theme, this is overkill and compounds the sense of distrust of the audience in the play. Andrea Lundy's lighting, especially effective in the initial museum scene, creates just the right atmosphere for the many locations required.
For obvious reasons, plays that depend on surprise for their effect don't last unless there are other compensations, like finely detailed characters, once the surprise is known. Here, where the plot involves a number of improbabilities those compensations are minimal. Besides that, when the play applauds itself for its own pretensions, there's no need for an audience to join in.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: Allan Hawco and Amy Redford. ©2002 Cylla von Tiedemann.
2002-10-13
The Shape of Things