Reasons to Be Pretty

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But the playwright also displays an unusually thoughtful side in this work while providing more complex characterizations than usual for him. While each of the four characters is given surprising aspects, it’s the perpetually befuddled Greg, who alternates between typically jerkish male behavior and genuine vulnerability and sensitivity, who most fascinates. Credit must especially go to Sadoski, who invests his performance with a compelling soulfulness. reasons to be pretty begins the last of LaBute's trilogy of plays (see links below) about the undue influence physical appearance with a bang-up fight between its protagonist, Greg (Thomas Sadoski) and his girl friend Stephanie (Alison Pill). The outraged cusses put David Mamet's status as the "F" word champion at risk (though a count has LaBute trailing Mamet's November 106 to 169). As with its predecessors, reasons to be pretty continues the author's exploration of what lies beneath the surface of contemporary America within the context of the relationships between lovers and friends. For the first time in LaBute's dramas of dismay, a character discovers within himself the milk of human kindness: it is a discovery that makes each full-frontal hostility, skewering accusation and subtle infidelity far more upsetting. Reasons to Be Pretty is part of a looksist trilogy that includes The Shape of Things and Fat Pig. But it is also a fine study of what it is to let people down. It reveals what an acute ear LaBute has: his dialogue is hyper-real; filigree fierce. By keeping true to the language of the text, the performance brings an American-style laugh-out-loud humour. Concurrently, it challenges the cross-societal issue of superficiality shared within Australian popular culture. Every element of the Theatre from casting to play selections will be tailored towards breaking new ground for Canberra creatives, and for their audiences

The Mill Theatre is in Building 3.3, the Screencraft and KeepCo building which is a short walk from Capital Brewing. There are two easy ways to approach the Theatre: LaBute’s gift for comically nasty dialogue — especially relating to the battle between the sexes — is very much on display here, never more so than in the hilariously painful scene in which the wounded Steph turns the tables on her ex by launching into a brutally detailed description of his many physical flaws during a meeting at a shopping mall food court. Tea, coffee and other non-alcoholic beverages will be available for sale thanks to Unscripted Fermentation during intermission and post-show. Dairy Road is being developed by Molonglo, with a long-term vision for an interconnected and diverse neighbourhood that emerges over the next 10 years. A productive refuge where many often-separated parts work together as one ecosystem. Here, light industry, working, living, recreation, retail and entertainment will be undertaken in a restored landscape. Michael Attenborough's production cleverly transmits this exceptionally inflected play. Tragedy is perky and jagged. The delivery is twangy. Mark Henderson's lighting is unflinchingly fluorescent. The design by Soutra Gilmour is snazzy: a trailer swivels round between episodes to show different faces. The only fault is over-emphatic, explanatory music accompanying each episode; all that is needed is a searing silence and the terrible screech of the buzzer summoning people to work.

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I found one of the key conflicts in this play to be the characters inability to adequately communicate, to fully articulate what was meant. It is easier for Greg to deflect the conversation using a joke or a flippant "Whatever" than to actually say what he means. It's not even a matter of cowardice; it's more like he doesn't have the self-knowledge or vocabulary to respond to Steph. Steph can never find the right words, which leaves her with only profanity or violence. Mill Theatre at Dairy Road ensure ideas through art and artistry through practice grow in their production of Reasons to be Pretty

Playwright/provocateur Neil LaBute has explored our obsession with physical appearance and the way it wreaks havoc on relationships in such works as “Fat Pig” and “The Shape of Things.” But “reasons to be pretty,” the third entry in this unofficial trilogy, cuts even deeper than its predecessors. Marking the playwright’s belated Broadway debut, this lacerating and extremely funny work should appeal to younger theatergoers especially.Director Terry Kinney keeps the confrontations tense, volatile and mostly unpredictable — whether it’s the awkwardness of long-term male friends with nothing in common beyond their history or the timid mutual explorations of former lovers, negotiating unhealed wounds while gently testing the depths of residual affections. The bristling scenes between Steph and Greg are especially strong, from their first raw screaming match to her bilious public humiliation of him by reading a list of his physical flaws; from their distant but rueful unplanned meeting to Steph’s final, painfully shy attempt to ascertain if there’s any way to salvage their relationship. Reasons to Be Pretty (stylized in all-lowercase) is a play by Neil LaBute, his first to be staged on Broadway. The plot centers on four young working class friends and lovers who become increasingly dissatisfied with their dead-end lives and each other. Following The Shape of Things and Fat Pig, it is the final installment of a trilogy that focuses on modern-day obsession with physical appearance. [1] Productions [ edit ] Cast: (*for actors reprising original roles) *Thomas Sadoski (Greg), Marin Ireland (Steph),* Piper Perabo (Carly) and Steven Pasquale (Kent). I got introduced to this play when a couple of friends performed the first scene as part of an acting class. It was amazing how captivating Labute's work can be with actors who know how to utilize the timing, punctuation and interjections. Labute, like Pinter, has a gift for infusing an otherwise ambiguous line with layers or meaning. The Lyceum is a good choice for Neil LaBute's Broadway debut, big enough to accommodate a larger audience than the Lucille Lortel downtown but not too big for this four character play to look lost or the audience too distanced from the four actors.

Wait im so pissed. Truly. It’s not that men can’t write about women but wait actually no they can’t, not about this stuff. Not about beauty, something that is so fundamental to being a woman, so un-understandable if you haven’t lived through it. The first Canadian production was presented in Montreal, at Théâtre La Licorne, from November 19 to December 14, 2012 with Quebec French translation by David Laurin and direction by Frédéric Blanchette. The cast of l'obsession de la beauté included Anne-Élisabeth Bossé, Maude Giguère, David Laurin and Mathieu Quesnel. [6] Like the principles embedded in the company, Lexi and Tim have built this show around emerging and independent actors, as well as stage and sound design crew, with an aim to build and support the growth of live Canberra theatre. Every member of the production team provides ‘shadow’ opportunities to emerging industry artists, with a view to mentoring them for the next production.The plan for the set is a kind of ‘industrial minimalism’, with concrete walls, raw materials, and brutalist style furniture,” Tim explains. “The intimacy of the space will allow the audience to be seated up close to the play’s colourful characters, permitting an immersion into their lives as we follow their journey. Now that reasons to be pretty has arrived in its new home on Broadway with it's half-new cast, revised script here are my reasons to be enthusiastic: WALK from Capital Brewing or the Less sculpture into the KeepCo building, pass Ramen Daddy and at the end of the corridor we are on the left. That prop will be central to the mechanics of the stage,” he says, pointing to an orange brutalist style chair. It’s a gift from a nearby Dairy Road business. Lexi is keen to expand: