Neil LaBute writes with savage, biting humor that is anything but funny to the person who is its target. It's dangerous humor, too, because he comes very close to exposing what's far below the surface, down where primal emotions churn like vicious undertow beneath the surface of what look like quiet seas. The play opened last night at the Gaslight Theater as a production of St. Louis Actors' Studio, and will run through March 7.
Director Alec Wild keeps tension building nicely, and he gets both laughs and gut-crackling nervousness out of the interaction of the principals. It's good theater.
Shanara Gabrielle, with dimples deep enough to drown in, is Evelyn, a self-proclaimed artist we first meet in a museum, thinking about spray-painting a statue because it does not meet her standards. A guard, Adam, interrupts her. The Adam-Eve(lyn) linking is so obvious that it appears LaBute thinks his audience is as much a nebbish as Adam, but he thankfully has more respect for his audience as the play goes on. And speaking of Adam, Billy Kelly's approach is delightful and he plays nebbish nicely. Gabrielle plays sexy, sneaky and vicious to a fare-thee-well. Their discussion of art and honesty soon descends into a discussion of sex, and they're off for a roll in the hay, something Adam has had too little experience with, especially considering he's 22 years old and not noticeably disfigured.
When she sets up a video camera in the corner of the bedroom, it immediately brings up "Chekhov's gun," a tactic that a playwright who brings a gun on stage must have a character fire it before the play ends. Here the video camera plays the same role.
Adam has a friend named Phillip (Christian Vieira), who has a fiancee named Jenny (Ann Ashby), but except for the fact that he argues fiercely with Adam and Evelyn (perhaps he's the snake), and she hangs around, neither character has much development, though they do serve LaBute's play and help move things along once or twice. Scott Neale's minimalist set is extremely effective, but with hardly a change it would work for "Art," which the Black Rep will produce in May. Garth Dunbar's costumes are nicely in character, but his dress for Evelyn's climactic scenes could have been a little less dowdy and more dramatic.
The story belongs to Adam and Evelyn, in the throes of deep lust, sometimes verging on rapture, always just a step away from another imaginative and stimulatingly dangerous location for a quickie. Meanwhile, Evelyn continually works on Adam to change–his hair, his glasses, his jacket. . . . Adam gobbles up all this attention; he's in awe of this beautiful creature and he will do anything to curry favor. This much curry can produce major indigestion.
"The Shape of Things," by St. Louis Actors' Studio at the Gaslight Theater through March 7.
–Joe