Fat Pig
Well, dear readers, i went to the theater last night. It was an OK play, at one of Washington's better theaters and by one of our times brightest theatrical stars, Neil LaBute. Should you decide to not see the play, i would recommend watching Your Friends and Neighbors which is LaBute at his meannest. Enjoy!
Fat Pig
Written by Neil LaBute, of In The Company of Men fame, this is a dark play about Tom, a handsome guy (Tyler Pierce) who works in an office and starts to have an affair with a Rubenesque beauty called Helen (Kate Debelack) that he picks up at a food court (naturally she is eating her third piece of pizza). The two hit it off and a relationship is born, but unfortunately (for this is a Neil LaBute play) all the people around him are jerks about her size and he is unsure whether he can face the peer pressure of dating a “fat pig.”
I am a big fan of Neil LaBute’s work. I find him to be more malicious version of David Mamet. While Mamet examines the world of petty losers, thieves, and other malvivants, LaBute instead turns his beady eye to relationships, and how cruel we all are to each other. These are not scripts for the lighthearted amongst us. Most of the time, his characters are cruelly mistreated by those around them and the society they live in. Fat Pig is no exception, and we watch as the two other characters in the play (co-workers of Tom’s, one of whom he has dated) ridicule him for dating a woman of such magnitude.
The main problem I found with the play was that the acting was not entirely up to scratch (then again, it rarely is in DC). Tom was a tad hysterical, and never managed to take it down a notch at all. The other male character, Carter (Jason Odell Williams), is a little to fey for a part that I feel was meant to be a little more masculine and calculating. The female lead, Helen, is very good and it is very impressive the degree to which she is willing to put herself out there on the stage (she spends the last few scenes in a bikini, a sight that has the desired effect). Yet, it is hard to mask a certain concern for her physical health at that size. On a mean note, the other female lead Jeanne (Anne Bowles) was sporting rather sizeable things herself and you find yourself agreeing with a mean-spirited statement that Carter makes early on (I prefaced that with a warning, you didn’t need to read it. I am sure she is a nice person. In my defense, it is hard not to notice such things when this is exactly what the play is about).
The biggest problem I had with the play, however, was the script. While the two females did their best, they were slightly hamstrung by a script that portrayed them both to differing degrees as Venus fly traps, eager to ensnare the infantile (and I suppose to some degree innocent) man. Jeanne seems to be a poster child for the jilted stalker former girlfriend, and while Helen is meant to be a totally endearing and vulnerable character, there are too many moments when you see her taunting Tom into loving her. The two males are simply sort of blank. The only real moment of depth to them comes when Carter tells a story of being with his incredibly overweight mother in a food store as a child. The story feels very real, and it is surprising that the moment of depth comes from the theoretically least important character. Otherwise, the two of them seem to be pretending and walking through emotional responses (I suppose we never really see any others in Carter, overall he is simply mean), this could be fault of the actors, but it felt more like the script. It could also be the point I suppose if we figure that the male characters are meant to be shallow, but Tom certainly does not react necessarily like a shallow person all the time.
This is not to say that the play is a total dud. It is full of humorous lines and is punchy at times, but it does not quite crackle and there is a lack of tension that should be there.
Mostly, I wonder about what kind of a twisted person Neil LaBute must be, or, more to the point, who the hell twisted him in this way? It feels like he has been rejected cruelly by women at some point in his past and in revenge has turned the full force of his rage upon them in his plays, verging on misogyny at times. Still, he has a great eye for human frailties, and I will still go out and watch his stuff again.
Survey says: not necessarily worth the money I shelled out for it, but sometimes, it is good to support the arts. Worth seeing if you can on the cheap.
Fat Pig
Written by Neil LaBute, of In The Company of Men fame, this is a dark play about Tom, a handsome guy (Tyler Pierce) who works in an office and starts to have an affair with a Rubenesque beauty called Helen (Kate Debelack) that he picks up at a food court (naturally she is eating her third piece of pizza). The two hit it off and a relationship is born, but unfortunately (for this is a Neil LaBute play) all the people around him are jerks about her size and he is unsure whether he can face the peer pressure of dating a “fat pig.”
I am a big fan of Neil LaBute’s work. I find him to be more malicious version of David Mamet. While Mamet examines the world of petty losers, thieves, and other malvivants, LaBute instead turns his beady eye to relationships, and how cruel we all are to each other. These are not scripts for the lighthearted amongst us. Most of the time, his characters are cruelly mistreated by those around them and the society they live in. Fat Pig is no exception, and we watch as the two other characters in the play (co-workers of Tom’s, one of whom he has dated) ridicule him for dating a woman of such magnitude.
The main problem I found with the play was that the acting was not entirely up to scratch (then again, it rarely is in DC). Tom was a tad hysterical, and never managed to take it down a notch at all. The other male character, Carter (Jason Odell Williams), is a little to fey for a part that I feel was meant to be a little more masculine and calculating. The female lead, Helen, is very good and it is very impressive the degree to which she is willing to put herself out there on the stage (she spends the last few scenes in a bikini, a sight that has the desired effect). Yet, it is hard to mask a certain concern for her physical health at that size. On a mean note, the other female lead Jeanne (Anne Bowles) was sporting rather sizeable things herself and you find yourself agreeing with a mean-spirited statement that Carter makes early on (I prefaced that with a warning, you didn’t need to read it. I am sure she is a nice person. In my defense, it is hard not to notice such things when this is exactly what the play is about).
The biggest problem I had with the play, however, was the script. While the two females did their best, they were slightly hamstrung by a script that portrayed them both to differing degrees as Venus fly traps, eager to ensnare the infantile (and I suppose to some degree innocent) man. Jeanne seems to be a poster child for the jilted stalker former girlfriend, and while Helen is meant to be a totally endearing and vulnerable character, there are too many moments when you see her taunting Tom into loving her. The two males are simply sort of blank. The only real moment of depth to them comes when Carter tells a story of being with his incredibly overweight mother in a food store as a child. The story feels very real, and it is surprising that the moment of depth comes from the theoretically least important character. Otherwise, the two of them seem to be pretending and walking through emotional responses (I suppose we never really see any others in Carter, overall he is simply mean), this could be fault of the actors, but it felt more like the script. It could also be the point I suppose if we figure that the male characters are meant to be shallow, but Tom certainly does not react necessarily like a shallow person all the time.
This is not to say that the play is a total dud. It is full of humorous lines and is punchy at times, but it does not quite crackle and there is a lack of tension that should be there.
Mostly, I wonder about what kind of a twisted person Neil LaBute must be, or, more to the point, who the hell twisted him in this way? It feels like he has been rejected cruelly by women at some point in his past and in revenge has turned the full force of his rage upon them in his plays, verging on misogyny at times. Still, he has a great eye for human frailties, and I will still go out and watch his stuff again.
Survey says: not necessarily worth the money I shelled out for it, but sometimes, it is good to support the arts. Worth seeing if you can on the cheap.
posted by Raff @ 7:32 PM
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