THOUGH I PUT YOU ON A PEDESTAL, I PUT YOU ON THE PILL: Some thoughts about Neil LaBute, Reasons to Be Pretty. At the Studio Theater ’til May 16, I think, and this really is a good production with good acting, even though I’m gonna be pretty rough on the play itself.

Even with an amazing actor as Kent (Thom Miller, who’s really fantastic and hilarious), LaBute’s script is way too on-the-nose. I mean I get that your story is about a manchild becoming a very slightly more adult human man. You don’t need the immediate within-scene contrast where Kent, the bad guy, stomps on Greg-the-Jesus-is-this-what-passes-for-a-good-guy’s sports jersey and then accuses Greg of being childish.

There are real philosophical fights about what counts as childish, and that’s maybe a part of why I’m so irritated by the cheap LaBute choices. I mean, rebellion against one’s parents or culture can be presented as adulthood or as “I don’t wanna!”, and that’s actually a really interesting clash. Sorting out the degree to which one’s choices are reflections of, reactions against, or more complexly related to parental choices is also a really interesting character arc. (I KNOW HOW MUCH I’M PROJECTING, LEAVE ME ALONE!!!) But LaBute in this play chooses to ignore any and all parental influence (not how actual heterosexual relationships work, come on!) and treats his characters as deracinated individuals. No real love of home is ever presented, nor is rebellion against home. Characters are generic “Americans,” not specific humans with specific parents and loves and habits.

I guess I’m especially displeased with the fact that LaBute sets up his play as a critique of, like, American gender pressures, but in fact this production ends up seeming to suggest that all of contemporary American neuroses around looks and gender and manhood are simply inevitable byproducts of heterosexuality. Which, like, I’m the first to say that straight people are the Problem and heterosexuality is inherently difficult, but anyone with imagination should be able to suggest that culture isn’t monolithic and we might at least replace our contemporary neuroses with different ones. I don’t know. I’d really love to know what actual straight people think of this play or this production, because it felt so intensely alien to me.

This isn’t a play about becoming a man. This is a play about knuckling under to the status quo–even the humiliations are only the ones which would make the audience feel the ultimate normative, boring masculinity of the hero. I guess that’s what I really hated, since I think men can be kind of awesome, in the right lighting.