Hard rock and provocative lyrics introduce scenes of cacophonous relationships among four "friends" who make up couples. No less piercingly for the opening emotional blast, Steph assaults Greg with a barrage of invective. At a party, he'd agreed with Kent, his supposed pal since high school and in recent years co-worker at a factory storage facility, about the "hot" looks of a new gal there. By comparison, Steph's face is, Greg admitted, "ordinary" -- though Greg loves her and her looks.
By phone, having overheard just the word, Kent's wife Carly conveyed the remark by another call to Steph. Incensed, after her tirade, she stomps out on her four year relationship with Greg. Though he's pining for her, he gets little sympathy from Kent, who's becoming involved with the "hot" gal and wants Greg to help him get a sports award.
Meanwhile, Carly, a security guard for the factory night shift, derides Greg's "communication skills" and takes Steph's side. Meeting Greg at a mall, Steph derides everything, past and present, about him. Greg tries to explain how cute he always thought she was. Though she agrees she stretched her insults, things won't be the same. Nor will they be at work for Greg. Kent quits for another, supposedly better paying job, but really to permit an affair. He's sworn Greg to secrecy.
Eventually Greg, who's always been a voracious reader of good literature, starts "reading" the others' words and acts. Chancing on a spiffed up but still edgy Steph at a restaurant, talking at the plant with a pregnant and worried-about-her-looks Carly, hearing the self-serving and cruel cheater Kent, Greg contemplates a return to college. When Steph again seeks him out, each of them confronts crucial choices.
Strangely enough, except for having some concern for Greg whose coming-of-age story this play is, one is tempted to say "so what"? Are these other characters worth caring about? Shallow, foul-mouthed Steph? Carly, who started all the trouble with her urge to gossip and hurt? Selfish, mean, cliche-spouting Kent, himself a cliche of an alley-tomcat? It's to director Barbara Redmond's credit, evoking their humanity whenever possible, that they generate any interest at all.
Hasn't LaBute already explored modern obsession with looks? Why always with 20-30 somethings? Isn't he traditional in his use of the appearance-reality theme? Can moving a battle of the sexes to a working-class setting with common workers be thought of as innovation? Do strings of invective really make inventive dialogue? (Hasn't Mamet already been there, done that?) No wonder beige walls and flooring are designed as blah scenic environments.
If nothing else, the cast would be commended for sustaining a play that's longer than need be. However, they're due much more praise.
Tony Stopperan as Greg grabs sympathetic attention and never lets it go. Not only Gretchen Porro's vocal explosions are a marvel. So is her transformation as Steph from even less than "ordinary" looking and shrewish to handsome and more self aware. Ashley Scallon illuminates Carly's vulnerability, while Jake Staley's Kent is truly a guy one likes to dislike.
In a play that scores young people, it's ironic that actors of their age give performances that seem to enhance the quality of the author's script.
