LaBrutality Beneath the Surface
Neil LaBute is known for unflinching depictions of human cruelty, so what happens when he takes on race in the American heartland? This Is How It Goes. My review is up on KQED Arts.
Hey, Nice Face
Neil LaBute writes a lot about cruelty. His 1992 play In the Company of Men showed two businessmen conspiring to break the heart of a deaf female coworker, 2001’s The Shape of Things depicted a shy young man completely redesigned by a new girlfriend as an experiment, and his 2004 play Fat Pig has a budding romance nipped in the bud because a guy’s friends keep giving him a hard time about how overweight his new girlfriend is. His work often leaves him open to charges of misanthropy. I first saw the 1997 film of Company of Men on a video double bill with I Know What You Did Last Summer, which was by far the kinder movie of the two.
Old Year, New Blog
Top Ten Theater Productions of 2009
Although I started 2009 reviewing theater for one paper and ended the year reviewing for another, when I look over the list of the 108 shows I saw over the course of the year to determine my top ten, I realize that none of my favorite shows are ones that I actually reviewed. Those respective papers have space, money and geographical constraints, and it just happened that there was no overlap between the shows in my review docket and those in this year’s top ten.
