Everyone needs a laugh
St. Norbert's 'Shape of Things' foul-mouthed, provocative By Warren Gerds
wgerds@greenbaypressgazette.com
DE PERE - It's been a long time since a play as bold as "The Shape of Things" has reached a stage in this region.
Playwright Neil LaBute diabolically creates a situation on a small Midwestern campus that rips at the heart of relationships, truth and the meaning of art while using the full force of incendiary language and images (real and imagined).
The St. Norbert College Theatre Discipline presentation's cast, directed by Stephen Rupsch, excels at re-creating LaBute's naturalistic touch with language. The performers make what happens feel real. Thank goodness, it's not.
LaBute, a provocateur, features a character of similar stripe in his play, Evelyn (Lindsay Stock).
An art student, Evelyn has an installation "thingie" going for her master's thesis. What the installation is is a mystery until the climax, and then the audience gets to take home something memorable from the effect of finding out.
Evelyn takes up with Adam (Colin Gulling), a nail-biting, bespectacled English-major nerd. Through "coaxing, often of a sexual nature," as Evelyn admits, Adam is transformed.
In the mix are Adam's friends, Jenny (Elizabeth Sauter) and Phillip (Sam Ball), who plan to marry. A boozy meeting between Evelyn and the friends explodes into furious insults.
The cast fits well into the characters, though the up-close-and-personal nature of some scenes, with the characters speaking inches apart, means portions of the audience lose that dialogue.
As foul-mouthed and sensory-charged "The Shape of Things" is, it's fascinating. But it's not recommended for anyone uncomfortable with "un-nice" theater.
I just needed to post that somewhere, since Warren Gerds has once again proven how terrible of a reviewer he is. Not only is the content of this review mediocre, but the writing is as well. I give it a 3 1/2 stars out of 4 (a joke only funny to those of the GB community)