You're gonna be bothered by how cool I am.

reasons to be pretty

I went to the theater for the first time in quite a while today, having convinced myself that $25-35 is not too much to spend every once in a while. I have several straight plays on my "to-do" list, but at the top was Neil Labute's new(ish) play, reasons to be pretty. (Lack of caps intended by writer.)

I'd seen one of his plays before (Bash: The Latterday Plays) and loved it, and I'd seen several of his films, from the great original stuff (In the Company of Men) to an incongruous literary adaptation (Possession) to a god-awful remake (The Wicker Man). But I felt sure that reasons would be more in the vein of the great stuff. And yes, it is.

It starts in the middle of a rather intense fight between Greg and his girlfriend Steph. Recently, Greg had made a stupid offhand comment to a friend about Steph's looks (comparing her to a beautiful new woman at his workplace and saying Steph's face was "regular" in comparison) which got back to her. The ensuing argument brings about the end of hers and Greg's four year relationship, and the rest of the play is about Greg growing up and being the guy that, had he been that all along, might still be with Steph.

This is a wonderful and raw play, full of Labute's trademark brusque-as-hell dialogue but lacking (in this case, to its credit) his characteristic plot twists. The cast of four, led by Thomas Sadokski (Greg) and Marin Ireland (Steph), are all really superb. The sets, somewhat plain and functional, but very much befitting the blue-collar setting. What struck me most, though, was that, despite its melancholy ending and lack of sentimentality, it's very romantic, which is not something I normally associate with Neil Labute. Most of his male characters are Grade A assholes (Aaron Eckhart in In the Company of Men, I'm looking at you bigtime.), but Greg becomes a truly sensitive, grown-up guy by the end of the play. And he (or the handsome Sadoski, it doesn't really matter which) can cry on my shoulder anytime. :)

Side note: I've been seeing the posters for this play for weeks, and I love the tagline - "does this play make me look fat?"