Fat Pig

Neil LaBute's play FAT PIG is currently at the Geffen Playhouse's second stage in Westwood through June 17. I saw it tonight, and I thought it was great. Can't say that I'm too familiar with LaBute's other work so I can't compare it to his other plays the way other reviews have, but I found it an incredibly thought provoking drama. The play concerns a young, fit and handsome guy named Tom - by all accounts one of those good looking people who are popular and cool, get everything handed to them on a plate - that meets a larger woman (read: fat girl) and ends up dating her. There's trouble when it comes to discussing this new girl with his friends, and especially more trouble when she asks to meet his friends. Even if he truly likes her, is he strong enough to let his friends associate him with this person that they laugh at? It's uncomfortable to watch in the sense that so much of what they talk about - how they perceive fat people, what other people say if you hang out with people deemed outcasts - are things that everyone inadvertedly thinks as well. And not just about fat people, but about anyone who is different-than-us. Plenty of other little things, too, like this person doesn't dress this way or that person doesn't talk another way. And ultimately it comes down to whether I would act the way the characters in the play would. It was a focused discussion of human interaction, not trying to take on the larger problem of the world, so that, too made it digestible.

This production is staged very intimately in the Geffen's 125-seat Audrey Skirball-Kennis Theater, the Playhouse's second stage that was added with the renovation of the Geffen two years ago. I was sitting in the front row, so I was right up there with all the actors, not that I wouldn't have been if I was sitting in the last rows of the very small space either. It was a great way to see the show because they were all literally in our laps. Intimate conversations really were intimate. (Set changes were a little strangely staged, as they turned on lights behind the set so awkward stagehands were silouhetted in large form through the back of the set. Suddenly the small show was poplated by a whole crowd of people wearing headsets.) The acting was all pretty first rate: Scott Wolfe, famous from his TV days in Party of Five, was Tom, Kristen Vangness was the overweight girl, and Chris Pine and Andrea Anders were Tom's friends.

Oh and another nice thing about the play: 100 minutes, no intermission. That's not a comment about how plays in general should be short and intermissionless. It just reflects my general state of being super tired and was glad I got a strong dose of something to think about in a concise, yet not cheap and rushed form.