The Shape of Things
Friday, October 18, 2002
In the October 11 Gainesville Sun, The Reviewer actually begins a review
with an apt premise. "The Shape of Things takes two subjects," writes the
Reviewer in the lead, "the creation of art and the quest for love and puts
them squarely in juxtaposition."
How then does the Reviewer manage to go so wrong?
By doing what comes naturally. For starters, the Reviewer's up to the
Reviewer's old plot spoiling tricks. LaBute's play is a consumable. It's
an intelligent entertainment. But the plot hinges on one character's motivation,
which makes the play something of a mystery. You know, like Psycho. Well,
you find out who done it right off the bat when you read the review.
Is this a subtle hint that we should read the review instead of seeing
the play?
Now I'll believe that most books are better than the movies that are
made out of them. But ain't no way the review of The Shape of Things is
better than the play. The play was funny. Intentionally.
The Reviewer asks simple straightforward questions, like: "Can the artist
manipulate her subject matter at will, ignoring moral and ethical standards,
the sole goal being her creation? Is there a morality in creating art?"
(Style note: ". . . moral and ethical standards" – never use one
or two words when you can use three or four or more and more . . .)
But then the Reviewer doesn't like the play's answers, which are both
yes. The answers are troubling to the Reviewer for two reasons: They are
contradictory; and they are true.
The Reviewer's conclusion? "As an intellectually disturbing play, The
Shape of Things dazzles. Its emotional content repels."
What the fuck does that mean?
I'm sorry. What in heaven's name can that mean? It sounds like the review
doesn't quite know whether it's coming or going.
Doncha hate that? Icky thoughts and bad feelings. It makes me feel a
little queasy too, and I liked the play.
Repels whom? The Reviewer presumably.
How can an intellectually disturbing play overcome its repelling emotional
content?
Answer: Only with good costumes and makeup, and good acting of course.
It makes you wonder where the Reviewer learned so very much about the
theater.
But is that really the solution to a particular problem? An emotionally
stimulating play with repellant intellectuality could presumably be patched
up with the same Band-Aids.
Still, these are small things to ask, no? Good costumes, makeup, and
acting. Not necessarily in that order, I hope. Nothing against makeup,
but I don't think any good play can be hurt by having too little makeup,
which is the Reviewer's complaint with Shape of Things.
"The nebbishy looking (sic) Adam (Casey Stern) of the play's first
scene looks just as nebbishy in the play's last scene. It's not enough
that he wears a suit and tie."
Plainly, it's not enough for the Reviewer, who want's an Oprah-style
makeover.
"As for the hair, Jon Bon Jovi doesn't so much as lend a wig."
Is this a stab at humor? If so, ow.
Or does the Reviewer really want to see actors in wigs. Bring back the
Burt Reynolds Theater!
Bring back Rip Taylor.
Bring back me in Boys in the Band.
"Little by little, Evelyn (Julie Tidwell) works to affect a transformation
in Adam's appearance and personality."
Time out from Lessons in Reviewing for this grammar note: The Reviewer
means "effect" and not "affect." Evelyn affects Adam, in that she influences
him; but Evelyn effects Adam's transformation, in that she initiates it.
More to the point, the Reviewer observes this transformation, and then
tells us that it can't be seen.
"The dislikable characters need to be played with wit and confidence
if LaBute's dark sensibility is to make its intended impression."
By the way, the characters aren't dislikable, the Reviewer just didn't
like them. Apparently it didn't occur to the Reviewer that the lack of
wit and confidence makes the characters dislikable.
Then there's that nagging plot point the Reviewer just has to let out:
Evelyn preys upon a lack of confidence and wit in her victims.
The allegorical nature of a play whose main characters are Adam and
Eve(lyn) seems to have escaped the Reviewer altogether.
Along with a few other things.
Julie Tidwell is a stunner. No one can stand up to her.
Casey Stern doesn't try. That's what makes his performance so engagingly
unaffected.
Julie is electric.
She can't sustain it, unfortunately, but that is partly LaBute's fault.
Casey is Adam, Julie is Eve(lyn). Is it merely LaBute's conceit that
she is a lot smarter than he is? I think not. I think Casey plays it honestly.
The Reviewer upbraids the makeup and costume designer. Is this like
college football, where the referee says there's a penalty, but he won't
tell you: on whom? As opposed to the pros, where the ref says: "Holding,
Number 77" for all the world to hear, the only time an offensive lineman
draws any attention. In this case, the makeup and costume designer are
one and the same Amy Grantham.
Part of the job of being the Reviewer is not knowing diddly about the
way theater really works. Traditionally, in the news paper biz, the editor
hunts up his new Reviewer in obits or the toy department because there
he will find Joe Average, who will relate his experiences in the theater
to his country cousin John Q Public.
Meet Bullshit Jim!
The Reviewer demeans Drew DeMaio's performance (which was sharp and
funny and truly played) and ignores his set design, which is a thing of
beauty, a work of art, made of clean lines and curves and precision, a
sculptured environment.
That's just groovy. The Reviewer gives away the plot, slams the actors
and crew, and, oops, forgets to mention that THERE'S A WORK OF ART ON DISPLAY!
It's probably gone now anyway. Theater is a temporal art. By the time
you read this, the show will probably have closed, and the set will have
been struck.
Amy Grantham did a swell job of making Casey Stern look different in
every scene he was supposed to look different in, and who knows how much
it cost her, and how much it cost Casey and the whole Thursday Afternoon
Productions, who are a handful of theatricians trying to make plays. Don't
give me this shit about costume and makeup like it's make or break.
Some things are make or break, tangible criticisms that a master carpenter
might give to an apprentice, which our novice Reviewer (sometimes novice
is a permanent class, like undergraduate) fails to mention.
The scene changes are interminable, stultifying. The black out and the
scene change are the most misused conventions of the theater. Hello, it's
2002. If you can't sustain our attention with the speed of light, it's
unlikely that making us sit in the dark for minutes at a time simply waiting
for you to get ready is going to excite us.
That's another way of saying here's another one of these plays that
is half an hour too long.
Part of that is LaBute's fault. He can't finish. More on that another
time. But it's nobody's fault but their own that the players put up with
any blackout at all to no effect. Things can happen in a blackout, you
know. But mostly, as in Shakespeare's plays, the action should be seamless.
The action should flash from scene to scene, from one part of the stage
to another. But never should there be a period of time in which nothing
happens.
On a lighter note. Simulated sex, I guess, has become old hat in the
theater, but here's a play with a simulated blow job.
LaBute is very hit or miss. He's got the basic of dramaturgy down. For
example, it's almost always better to be an informed audience, which is
to say one that knows more about the plot than the characters do. As long
as it's not a cheat, as long as it is not at the expense of the characters,
so that we end up watching stupid people. LaBute has a clever cheat at
least. We know more than all the characters except one – Evelyn.
But we have our suspicions because we're as bad as she is. (Of course
we have no more suspicions once the Reviewer gets done with us.)
The really bad playwriting comes in a deus ex machina explanation that
LaBute forces Evelyn to give. It is a moumental mistake, but a molehill
in comparison to Hitchcock's faux pas Freudian explanation at the end of
Psycho. Julie Tidwell gives tit for tat with a flat reading of her monologue
that lands on stage like a dead fish, with the three other characters seated
in the audience (a nice touch by director Brian Tamm, who doesn't so much
as earn a mention from the Reviewer).
"Give me two players and a passion," Moliere said, "and I will show
you theater."
This play is theater, even if it isn't Moliére.
Coming Soon: I Catch the Reviewer Praising a Piece of Shit
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