THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
Even though this is one of Neil LaBute's most performed plays, having clocked up hundreds of productions worldwide, it's the first major London revival in 20 years. The good news is that The Shape of Things hasn't dated a bit and indeed stands up as a classic, and that here, this young and upcoming cast give the starry originals a run for their money (when it premiered at the Almeida in 2001 it starred Rachel Weisz, Paul Rudd, Frederick Weller, and Gretchen Mol).
LaBute, who now concentrates more on movies and TV, had an amazing run of plays which focused on the gladiatorial arena of sexual politics and particularly on what's now called 'toxic masculinity'. This play, with its all-conquering female protagonist, had audiences squirming and arguing and taking sides in a way which would make Mamet blush. What's ingenious here is how he explores such big themes as the lengths people go to for love, the casual cruelty in relationships and above all the moral responsibility of the artist, and yet he's framed it all in an accessible and very relatable story about the couplings of two pairs of friends in a small Midwest college town.
Luke Newton (of Bridgerton fame) plays Adam, a geeky young student who works part time in a museum and in a video store to pay his way through college. He meets a beguiling post-grad art student Evelyn (Amber Anderson), whom he considers way out of his league. They connect, and she slowly sets about transforming first his appearance and then everything about him, while making him discard his few friends.
She instills in him a newfound confidence such that the previously shlumpy guy gets attention he'd never experienced before. In time of course his eye starts to wander, initially to his best buddy Phil's girlfriend, Jenny (Carla Harrison-Hodge). It's a great premise and LaBute asks us who really comes out the worst here? Is it Adam as the 'Eliza' character or Evelyn's 'Professor Higgins'? In a fantastic final twist, which I won't spoil for those new to the play, we learn the shocking reason behind Evelyn's plan.
LaBute's dialogue, is wonderfully tart and wryly observant throughout and he's a master at ratcheting up tension so that a seemingly casual chat between the two guys ends up like a police interrogation, deploying all the same strategies and mind games. It's like a great string quartet and it's all deftly conducted here by director Nicky Allpress.
Newton wonderfully calibrates Adam's transition from nerd to hunk and is always heartily engaging while Anderson (amazingly in her stage debut here having previously concentrated on TV), perfectly embodies Evelyn's duality. On the one hand the powerfully articulate, punkish, 'free spirit' and on the other a mastermind who, almost nonchalantly, traps the hapless, naive, Adam in her web.
Harrison-Hodge invests Jenny with some spirit so she's more than just the other 'love interest' while Majid Mehdizadeh-Valoujerdy perfectly embodies the alpha-male cockiness which Evelyn despises in Phil.
This is wonderfully thought-provoking piece, executed with economy and flair and boasting a great quartet of actors who we'll be seeing more of.
