The Shape of Things
By Neil LaBute
Burton Taylor Theatre
Tuesday 29th October - Saturday 2nd November 2002

Neil LaBute is a Mormon with a reputation for using mean and nasty characters to make moral statements. Don't let that put you off. Here, his sympathy and savagery have been worked into a jagged, witty play that is soon to be released as a movie. The tension and feeling between the four characters is palpable and the morality never becomes overbearing.

On a small American college campus arts postgrad Evelyn is about to deface a sculpture when part-time gallery guard and English Lit geek Adam coyly tries to stop her, gets her number, and enters an unlikely relationship. Evelyn begins to alter - manipulate - Adam and we soon work out what, or rather who, her "big installation" project is. As Adam's surface appearance becomes "better", his personality falls from kind and innocent lad to a liar who sleeps with his best friend's fiancé.

Matthew Ashcroft handles Adam's transition from dorkness to darkness in an understated, effective manner, equalled by Laura Murray as the pretentious arts graduate. Their student couple friends, Jenny and Phillip, played by Emma Campbell Webster and Richard Darbourne, are entirely believable. Phillip's verbal jousts with Evelyn are hilarious and Jenny seems permanently unsettled, sad and human.

When the play first came to the Almeida in London, the Smashing Pumpkins soundtrack roared between scenes so loud that Harold Pinter left before the first scene. We are treated to similar bursts of rock and punk, adding to the campus setting. The set is of little importance since the tensions between the characters are absorbing, though the videotaped bedroom scene cleverly reminds us how Evelyn is continually recording and objectifying Adam and their relationship.

The nature of truth and art are the themes LaBute is most concerned with. What is art and what is mere attention seeking? His life exposed, his pants in a display cabinet, Adam begs of Evelyn, "Where do you draw the line?" Does the artist have a responsibility not to turn a human into an object, or simply to the statement he or she wishes to make? Hardly original questions, and the use of biblical names hints at a slightly desperate search for profundity, but the speed of the action and quality of the performances prevent it getting bogged down.

LaBute may be guilty of raising questions without having anything new to say. The issue is not so much the evil of one artist turning her boyfriend into an object by making him more desirable by society's standards - he loses weight, changes his hair, ditches his shabby old coat for the mall's finest, and gets a nose job (how can a hard-up student afford that?) - but that the public generally chooses or feels compelled to do this themselves. Who has not thought their lives might be better with a new outfit or losing (or gaining) a few pounds? And we can change ourselves out of kindness: As Jenny remarks, we'd all change one thing about our partner, Adam just happens to be willing to change six things for Evelyn. Most importantly, why vilify the artist when his or her practice is merely a distillation of a market society's capacity to create individuals happy to hand over their subjectivity, who seek identity over the counter?

With Tracy Emin rolling into town in a few weeks this play will give you plenty of ammunition. But come see this play simply because its sharp and well-acted. LaBute is no philosopher but he writes a good script.

Ben O'Loughlin
29th October 2002