The Shape of Things: A Play
by Neil LaBute
Faber and Faber, 138 pp., $13 (paper)
The shape of Neil LaBute’s older things — like his scripts for his film directorial debut, In the Company of Men, and its follow-up, Your Friends and Neighbors — were all sharp edges, lacerating works made up of one part wit, two parts venomous social critique. But his latest script, this one written for the stage, is a gelatinous mess, full of ideas that never shape up into much of anything. The Shape of Things concerns itself with the relationships of two college-age couples: the developing one between Adam and Evelyn and, more peripherally, the disintegrating one between Adam’s former roommate, the loutish Phillip, and Adam’s former crush, Jenny. But really these four are just the talking-clip vessels for getting across LaBute’s half-cocked theories about the nature of self, the pursuit of perfection, the distinction between art and artifice, and the willingness to make oneself over in another’s image. It’s the old Adam & Eve conceit, only here, it’s Evelyn re-creating the insecure but willing Adam in her own likeness, or rather, her ideal of perfection. She does so slyly, first suggesting he work out a little, then maybe buy a new coat, and how ’bout a nose job? Evelyn never demands these little transformations — and that’s presumably meant to be the beauty of her machinations — but Adam is more than willing to pick up her cues, like little tossed bits of bread, to transform himself. The Shape of Things has played to poor reception in New York, but met with wild acclaim in London, where it premiered in May of this year. One New York critic attributed Londoners’ praise to a “jingoistic” delight in LaBute’s portrayal of Americans as shallow and unevolved — a characterization that is clinched in the play’s final scenes. LaBute lays his theories bare in a clunky, five-page monologue that’s meant to shock, but we’re already so convinced the characters are dim, nasty, and/or unappealing, there’s little surprise in what amounts to a smirking LaBute trying to yank the tablecloth off the table while leaving the dishes intact. No doubt with all the accouterments live theatre affords, his play better comes to life, but even so, the pages here serve as a blueprint for disappointment, for the dishes to come crashing down.
This article appears in December 28 • 2001.
