reasons to be pretty

Beauty is always skin deep in the plays of Neil LaBute, with cataclysmic consequences for his characters. In ” reasons to be pretty,” at the Lyceum Theater, an offhanded remark by Greg (Thomas Sadoski), a Poe/ Hawthorne reading regular Joe, about his live-in girlfriend Steph's (Marin Ireland) “regular” face sets off a chain of expletives “worthy of an Eddie Murphy movie.” The communicative meltdown is the kind of verbal and physical violence you can also see in “God of Carnage” on Broadway in another play about 2 couples behaving badly. The other couple in this blue collar suburb is married: Carly played by Piper Perabo as a security guard and her philandering husband, Greg's coworker Kent (Steven Pasquale). This play has no pretense of evoking all of Western civilization as “Carnage” attempts to do, and yet, there is no loss to the emotional resonance of a casual slight. La Bute has mined this territory before, in “Fat Girl,” and in the movie “In the Company of Men,” to brutal effect, where girls who are not quite America's top model, or “trophy” worthy are savagely dissed. Localized in an anywhere USA workplace the scenes shift deftly from a shipping factory to a company cafeteria to schoolyard, giving these small town workers a place to voice their locker room concerns with looks, bodies, La Bute's signature preoccupation with these superficialities. Feelings are hurt so bad, the fragile cords in relationships fray. As well directed by Terry Kinney, the action is fast-paced: the playwright's dialogue shines, as Greg and Steph begin to listen, really pay attention to each other. The audience at Thursday night's opening was listening too. Edie Falco, Jean Doumanian, Caroline Rhea, Amber Tamblyn, and Brian DePalma were among those in rapt attention to this tale of broken hearts. Tova Feldshuh (so good as the title character in “Irena's Vow”) and Matt Cavanaugh (a fine Tony in “West Side Story”) arrived at the rooftop party at Hudson Terrace fresh from their own performances. Marin Ireland, resplendent in a gold sequined sheath, looked anything but regular.

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

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