The character of Evelyn is a woman because that makes it more interesting, more against the norm of a strong man and a malleable women. The play is interesting because of its views on weakness and strength, and on what we really want and crave. The context of “Art” is merely dictatorial strength, focus and purity (eg the aryan references) versus everyday neediness and weakness.

The “nice” Adam is even more duplicitous then Evelyn simply because he is weak and human, two qualities which gain the sympathy of the audience, and combine to allow us to crucify Evelyn. Labute deliberately makes Adam’s character more sympathetic and “everymanish” simply to further his theme of obsessive focus.

I enjoyed it very much. It is great to see young actors following their dreams, and giving such strong, polished yet raw performances in the childhood of their careers. It is always good to ruminate about the human codition, and the play and the performances certainly makes you do that.

I would add that I’d love to see a production of the play one day that tries to address this problem not by trying to humanise Evelyn, but instead by pointing a few fingers at Adam. There’s a tendancy to find geeks a little bit hapless, cuddly and adorable but they don’t need to be done that way. Outsiders and outcasts can, sometimes, cultivate a real vicious self-serving egomania.

I think Adam, as written, has more than a few of these traits. He can be smug, duplicitous, acts on and seems to feel he deserves everything he’s ever wanted and clearly enjoys lording his english-lit proclivities in the face of non-english students in an automatic way that might just bely a feeling that he knows more than they do. His response to Evelyn’s rebuke at his Kafka-namedrop in the final scene is telling of this: “I don’t get that reference, Adam!” “It doesn’t matter! I do!”

If Adam has a little bite then perhaps the play can be viewed in a very different light. Not the evil that women will do to men, but the evil that people bring on themselves – it becomes something almost Greek – bad things coming to bad people.

It strikes me too that Jenny’s plaintive final call for decency and “just being a nice person” has even more pathos in a world where everyone is horrible to everyone else as a matter of course.

This is in no way an indictment of Tim Reuben’s performance – I’m talking about a perspective shift on the play itself that seems might uncover some new points of interest in the original script. I thought Reuben and the cast did a great job that, as Gus puts it, got everyone talking. All the best for a great season.

Perhaps that’s the point. Perhaps there are sometimes characters we feel nothing for… but are we engaged with them, I think that is the question. For we can dislike someone, but find them fascinating, learn from them. I think it is interesting that you had the response you hated her. Surely this is no fluke of LaBute’s. It’s intended. Why the strong reaction? What is it that makes us grizzle and furrow?

Perhaps it’s the innate belief that all people can be understood, liked, accepted – all people deserve compassion? Perhaps it’s our understanding of the Romantic comedy genre. Perhaps The Shape of Things isn’t a romantic comedy. Perhaps it’s a romantic tragedy – where the classic “death” is the “death of affection for the protagonist?”

This is all very clever because the play itself questions the value of subjectivity in art. Your response to Evelyn is subjective. what we wish of a character and a story does not make it right. Why do we need to like a character? What is it about likeability in characters (especially female protagonists) that we won’t be compromised on?

It is our responsibility as thinkers/theatre goers/philosophers/theatre makers (whatever) to regard and respond to what the work is showing us – and to examine our response to it. Unpack it, not merely reject it if it is not what we are expecting or wishing.

I know Grant. It’s tough. It’s tough because we want happy endings. We want theatre to be our moral compass, our guide and teacher. And sometimes it is. But perhaps on this occasion the sport is not in what is being said but our reaction to it.

Thoughts?

Anyhow, thanks for the article Gus