Reasons to Be Pretty

Product Information

American playwright Neil LaBute's bristling comic drama focuses on modern day obsession with physical appearance. The plot centres on four friends and lovers who become increasingly dissatisfied with their dead-end lives and each other. A hard edged comedy that makes us question what really matters in life.

Sometimes LaBute puts symmetrical patterns and point-scoring above plausibility. Steph's initial rage gets the play going but seems wildly disproportionate. You also wonder how Greg, who rather ostentatiously reads Poe, Hawthorne and Swift on the night-shift, has managed to stay friends with a philistine bully like Kent. And, although LaBute is clearly putting in a plea for the average-looking, morally decent guy like Greg, you feel he does this only by making all the other characters appear, at various times, contemptible.Howard Davies's production, for the Abbey Theatre and the National, comes and goes. It is indulgent in the early tedious scenes which pivot, Benny Hill-style, around a lurching man in a cap and a furious (cue for a laugh) woman in an apron. It strengthens in the later stages when women mourn their dead men and plead for an end to strife.

The little remark that turns into a big deal —polarizing the Steph-Greg, Carly-Kent, Greg-Kent relationship — is part of some macho talk between the guys. Kent's comments about a very pretty new employee has Greg misexplaining his less beauty-conscious attitude towards Steph. If only we could edit our remarks before they slip off our tongues! But Greg's straight from lung to tongue utterance is unretrievable and unfortunately overheard by Carly, for whom the word ugly is a red flag that makes her feel honor-bound to report what she heard to her friend Steph.

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Presented by Jeffrey Richards, Jerry Frankel, Gary Goddard Entertainment, Ted Snowdon, Doug Nevin/Erica Lynn Schwartz, Ronald Frankel/Bat-Barry Prods., Kathleen Seidel, Kelpie Arts Llc., Jam Theatricals, Rachel Helson/Heather Provost Like i swear this play is literally about oh boo hoo you think it’s bad for a man to not think you’re the most beautiful thing on earth well guess what they can be WORSE than that, you’re dumb for being upset for not being pretty enough when PREGNANT WOMEN are getting CHEATED ON. Like ok chill Neil. 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. Far from being strictly American in content, the play allows the audience to access and connect with another side of Australian life, that of living in a country town or an outlying suburb.

reasons to be pretty might have worked even better if brought in with the same 90 minute run time as Fat Pig. But at any length, it's a fitting finale for the physical appearance fixated trilogy, delivering the usual verbal punches (and in this case even a few physical ones) — especially in this expertly directed, authentically staged and convincingly acted production. The Australian premiere took place in May 2012 at the Darlinghurst Theatre in Sydney, directed by National Institute of Dramatic Arts graduate James Beach and starring Andrew Henry. Attached to the theatre is an ensemble of professional Canberra creatives called the Players. We are a mix of Canberra creatives, along with several interstate Canberra lovers, committed to a professional practice for the ACT theatre industry. We work together at regular drop-ins, with parts in productions offered directly to Players. This is not a cosy club. Creatives who share the same values are welcome to join by attending the drop-ins. 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. Starting with a volatile opening scene, the play transports the audience to an intimate setting in a small middle-American town. We get up-close and personal with two couples—Greg (Rhys Hekimian), Steph (Alana Denham-Preston), Kent (Ryan Erlandsen), and Carly (Lexi Sekuless)—as they navigate a toxic environment.

About Me

The Mill Theatre at Dairy Road is Canberra’s newest theatre, an intimate 67 seat grey-box studio at the Dairy Road precinct. The Theatre is run by Lexi Sekuless Productions with Elite Event Technology completing the theatre fit out and providing all technical support. The Theatre is an ambitious venture committed to a professional theatre practice and growth of the professional theatre industry in the ACT. It is 1183 and the Aquitaines are gathering for Christmas: "Shall we hang ourselves or the holly?" Henry, a robust, roistering and commanding Robert Lindsay, has invited his wife Eleanor to come out of prison (where he put her, for trying to bump him off) for the occasion. Lumley, milking every reference to wrinkles and vanity, pawing the air as if it were her pet, turns herself into Queen Patsy. Reading this after watching the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial really makes you think differently about it. Like damn bitch why you gotta be throwing pans at someone’s head that’s straight up not okay. Not that i thought it was okay the first time I read it but it’s just so clearly abuse I’m trying to figure out what the playwright was doing with her. Meeting with Lexi and Director Tim Sekuless at this very space to find out more, I find Tim seated in the studio’s performance space. 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.

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.

Blog Archive

I had chosen LaBute’s Reasons To Be Pretty specifically because it poses the question: Why do we keep going when things get tough? It provides both the performers, and the audience, with an opportunity to reflect on this question in their own lives.” It’s a timely mental practice for the current times. In 2011 it was produced in London at the Almeida Theatre with a cast including UK actress Billie Piper, Kieran Bew, Siân Brooke and Tom Burke. [5] It opened to critical acclaim on the press night, November 17, 2011, with reviewers claiming it 'was one of the best theatre productions' they had seen in 2011.