In Which Trai Reviews 'Red'

The Book: Red

The Author: John Logan

How I Found It: I've recently become enamored of the actor Eddie Redmayne, who won a Tony for his portrayal of Ken, Rothko's assistant, in 2010. I was curious about the play's subject manner and his role in it, and decided to give it a look.

The Review: New York City, 1958 and 1959. Ken is the new assistant hired by Mark Rothko, famous painter of the 1930s and onwards. Rothko is abrasive, demanding, and very, very vocal. Ken is young, reserved, and not educated in the way Rothko would like. Still, he takes Ken--who is an artist himself--on as his assistant and lets him help around the studio, letting him do things like picking up takeout or helping with canvas priming (which, and he is adamant about this, is not painting).

As a year or so passes, Ken and Rothko, uneasy around each other at first, grow accustomed to each other's presence. Ken begins to educate himself with the texts Rothko constantly mentions, and takes it upon himself to challenge Rothko's firmly held notions about art and perception, while Rothko begins to draw Ken out and learn about his difficult past. As tensions reach a boiling point, Ken forces Rothko to reconsider his commission to paint wall murals for the Four Seasons restaurant, while Rothko begins to wonder if Ken is not, perhaps, what the future of art might look like.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this play. Was I going to enjoy it? More importantly, was I going to understand it? I don't know very much about art, and I was never particularly good at it. (I make pictures with words, I explain to those who ask if I can draw.) If I didn't understand much of anything about art, would I understand the message of this play? Would I be able to appreciate it?

As it turned out, I could, and so much more than I thought. Like Proof, a play about math that I had equal reservations in approaching, I didn't have to understand the subject matter in order to appreciate the very human, very affecting drama that played out here.

This is a play about two men that sounds all too familiar. It's an old trope, the young assistant who challenges the ideas of the old pro. Too often, the young assistant and the old pro form some sort of bond to compensate for a lack of parental presence on the young assistant's part. In some ways, Logan's play adheres to this trope--Ken's parents were indeed absent, though not of their own choosing, as becomes heartbreakingly clear in one of Ken's biggest moments--but in others, it's brilliantly subverted. Rothko and Ken's bond is never entirely easy; the volatility of Rothko's temper makes this impossible, and who says that Ken wouldn't want to unsettle him, provoke him into deeper thought, in any way he could? The play even sneers at the notion that Rothko is meant to be a father figure for Ken. Their relationship is deeper and more complicated than that trite summation.

Even if I didn't know much about art, I was surprised at how absorbed I became in its concerns. An intensely described scene of canvas priming (35-8) had me longing to have seen the play on stage; it's beautifully choreographed and must be a wonder to see staged in front of your eyes. I don't have much of an eye for color, and yet I was deeply moved by the scenes in which Rothko and Ken meditate on what meanings certain colors hold for them. For Ken, white is linked with the trauma of his past; for Rothko, red is what he clings to.

[on Matisse's "The Red Studio"]
Rothko: ... Such plains of red he made, such energetic blocks of color, such emotion! [Beat.] That was a long time ago.
Ken: It's still there.
Rothko: I can't look at it now.
Ken: Why?
Rothko: It's too depressing.
Ken: How can all that red be depressing?
Rothko: I don't see the red anymore... Even in that painting, that total and profound emersion in red... it's there. The mantel above a dresser, just over the centerline, set off by yellow of all goddamn things. He wanted it inescapable.
Ken: What?
Rothko: Black.
Ken: The color black?
Rothko: The thing black. [Beat.] There is only one thing I fear in life, my friend... One day the black will swallow the red. (28)

That imagery of colors, of what color could do to a person, really moved me--it's the same relationship I have with words, as a writer and a reader. Much as I could understand what math meant to Proof's Catherine by thinking of my own relationship to my work, I could understand how the color white could transport Ken back to a horrible time in his past. I could understand Rothko's fears of no longer seeing the red for the black.

And even if the Ken and Rothko plot could be considered a cliche, I found myself taking the arguments the two men had, the points both of them would raise, and applying them to my own life. To me, this wasn't just some story of a young man pushing an older one's boundaries; it said something. This early speech of Rothko's had me almost embarrassed, as I could realize how true it was almost immediately after reading it:

Rothko: But do you like it?
Ken: Mm.
Rothko: Speak up.
Ken: Yes.
Rothko: Of course you like it - how can you not like it? Everyone likes everything nowadays. They like the television and the phonograph and the soda pop and the shampoo and the Cracker Jack. Everything becomes everything else and it's all nice and pretty and likable. Everything is fun in the sun! Where's the discernment? Where's the arbitration that separates what I like from what I respect, what I deem worthy, what has... listen to me now... significance. (10)

How many times have I run into this problem? How many times have I used the same word to express a multitude of feelings, an opinion that should be expressed in terms of greater variety? Hell, how often do I run into that sort of problem in these reviews? The fictional Rothko's words have stayed with me in the days since I read the play. I've tried to choose my words more carefully since then. I haven't thought this consciously about a work I've read and applied its lessons to my real life in a long time.

The tension between Rothko and Ken builds to an intensely emotional final scene, where Rothko's own vulnerabilities finally come to the surface. Ken has seen that Rothko is sometimes unstable, but never before has Rothko so openly admitted his fears about his life and his work. Ken has pushed him to a breaking point and it is all Rothko can do to be honest with him. I was moved to tears in a way I hadn't thought I could be other than by imagery of profound sorrow--mourning, really--or happiness. I closed the book and had to sit for a moment. To think, in the way we leave Rothko, just standing there, studying his paintings.

The play won acclaim in both the West End and Broadway, and even having just read the play, I feel that acclaim is well-deserved. It's beautifully written, thought-provoking, and avoids all those irritating little cliches that tend to turn one off of mentor/mentoree stories. If you're at all curious about this play or its subject matter, give it a shot. It's not that long; you could read it in about an hour. But hopefully, as I have, you'll be thinking about it for a whole lot longer.

In Which Trai Mini-Reviews 'Fahrenheit 451' and 'Long Day's Journey into Night'

Mini-Reviewing The Classics!

Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury: You wanna hear about the ultimate lesson in irony? After I'd finished the book, on our last day of discussing it, I'm listening to one of my classmates read a selection aloud and coming to the realization that, you know, all those swear words aren't in my edition (granted, it was a very old one). Yeah. I had a censored edition of Fahrenheit 451, the ultimate anti-establishment book. I got a good laugh out of it, but now I really have to track down an unexpurgated edition.

This was one of those books that everyone read in high school but me. I somehow ended up in the classes that didn't read it, for some reason or other, and I never seemed to hear much about it from people I knew in the other classes. I'm glad I didn't, because I went into this one pretty blind, not knowing anything about it other than it being about book-burning, and it made reading this a really eye-opening experience.

I've stated before that I love books and movies about books and reading. It's a subgenre I've just come to adore, because reading is such a huge part of my life, and it's always interesting to see how other people put that experience into words and visuals. I expected to be horrified, reading about a world without books, and I was, but not in the way I expected to be. I was horrified by how prescient Bradbury's vision has turned out to be.

Guy Montag lives in a future where firemen have one purpose: not to put out fires, but to start them. Homes have long since been fireproofed, and the only threat to society now is books. Montag is fairly content with his profession, until a run-in with a very odd teenager, Clarisse, makes him take another look at his life. Clarisse makes him notice the things he's long since forgotten about: that there's dew on the grass in the mornings, that advertisements didn't always pervade every inch of society. Once Montag notices these things, he finds it difficult to revert back to his old way of thinking.

Things spiral fast, and Montag finds himself fighting back against the restrictions of his society--most particularly, the menace of his boss, the fire chief Beatty. A former English professor, Faber, becomes his only ally in a struggle against a system that has long since stopped caring about the welfare of humanity.

Stylistically, this book put me to sleep at first (the sentence structure was a bit too simple for me, although some passages were really striking), but I came to love it over time. Any one of us has the tendency to forget the little things, and Clarisse pointing them out to Montag was pretty poignant. It's not quite about the fight against censorship, though that's definitely part of it. A larger part of the book's message concerns how entertainment gradually replaced the printed word, how television and movies rendered it unnecessary. What was beginning to frighten my class was that so many of the inventions in the book are around today. The parlor walls are our flatscreen televisions. The "seashells" are our iPods or Bluetooth headsets. Paper books are disappearing due to the Kindle and Nook.

Even if how dead on it was scared me at times, I ended up loving the ending and all of this book stands for. I recommend it wholeheartedly to every person who didn't read it in high school, to any person who loves to read.

***

Long Day's Journey into Night, by Eugene O'Neill: Another one that played straight into my literary preferences: a nice, involved, slow-moving drama about a family and its problems. Wow, I was not expecting to feel as much as I did reading this one. I was expecting a story about a family that hated each other, and I ended up being proven wrong: these family members love each other very much indeed.

This was a semi-autobiographical effort by O'Neill, one he didn't want performed until fifty years after his death, but one that got performed before that anyway thanks to his wife. It concerns James Tyrone (mainly referred to by his surname), his wife Mary, and their two sons, Jamie and Edmund. James, Jamie, and Edmund are all alcoholics, and Mary has demons of her own. And the fun doesn't stop there: Jamie has been racking up debts due to his drinking and visits with prostitutes, Edmund might have consumption, and Tyrone's money--which could go a long way towards solving the family's problems--is all tied up in real estate. Hooboy. We get one day in the life of this family, as they fight their way towards some sort of understanding.

Like I said, this one surprised me. Just when I thought I knew something about a character, I'd find out I was wrong. I thought Tyrone felt nothing but disappointment for his sons, but then we get a scene or two where Edmund voices that assumption, only to be proven wrong by a very hurt Tyrone. As always, I'm a sucker for well-written dialogue and well-developed characters, and they were in full force here. I can see that O'Neill really did take this one from life. I'd love to see this one performed; as it is, I'm hoping to, someday soon, check out a few of the different film versions.

I'd like to read this one again, simply because the sheer amount of references to other works made me extremely curious to look them up, and because I was so enthralled by reading this that I just want to revisit it and get that experience again. I'd definitely recommend this one to fans of classic drama that haven't read it already, or to someone that just wants a really good, suprisingly dense and issue-filled play.

In Which Trai Mini-Reviews 'The Importance of Being Earnest', 'Peter Pan', and 'Pygmalion'

Many apologies about the lack of reviews in February. My courseload this semester has a lot of reading, as in a few books a week, and while it's great to read so much, time for reading outside of class has been incredibly scarce. I'm hoping things will settle down, but for now, reviews might be few and far between.

Mini-Reviewing the Classics!

The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde: This was one of those times when I only knew vaguely about the plot, mostly through osmosis. All I could remember was that it had to do with leading a double life, and that it was, symbolically, the play that Peter tries to see Mary Jane starring in in Spider-Man 2.

So yes. There went the extent of my acquaintance with Oscar Wilde, besides a long-held resolution to read The Picture of Dorian Gray. Eventually. I was pleased to finally read this play, having wanted to ever since the Spider-Man thing, and I wasn't disappointed. I found it witty, ironic, and really fun to discuss.

We go into The Importance of Being Earnest knowing two men: "Ernest" and Algernon. Algernon is very confused as to why his friend "Ernest" has a cigarette case declaring him to be someone's "Uncle Jack." As it turns out, "Ernest" is an identity fabricated by Jack, one that helps him escape from his duties as a guardian to his ward and go out on the town. Jack is also very much in love with Gwendolen Fairfax, and wishes to propose to her. They are forbidden to marry by the formidable Lady Bracknell, Gwendolen's mother, but Gwendolen swears her allegiance to him anyway. Algernon, meanwhile, is determined to disguise himself as Ernest in order to meet Jack's pretty young ward, Cecily. All of this would be fine--if Cecily and Gwendolen were not both convinced that they're engaged to the same Ernest, and Jack has already decided to conveniently "kill off" his Ernest persona.

This play was a quick read and also a really hilarious one; I truly enjoyed it and will definitely read it again sometime. I got a good laugh out of the many ironic lines, and I'm surprised at how well it holds up today. I'm sure all of us are guilty of occasional "Bunburying"--inventing a sick relative to get out of some social obligation! This was a welcome break from my habit of reading dramas whenever I sit down to read a play, and I'd definitely recommend it for fun book club discussion or something of that sort.

***

Peter Pan, by J.M. Barrie: This was one book that I was returning to after a previous acquaintance--I'd gotten most of the way through it around the time the 2003 live action movie debuted, but never had the chance to finish it. I was excited to finally read the whole thing, and as I read it, I could remember exactly which parts had made my 12-year-old self happy and which parts had confounded me slightly.

We start, of course, with Wendy, John, and Michael, three children who are whisked off by Peter Pan to Neverland. Peter believes that the Lost Boys of Neverland could use a mother to tell them stories, and Wendy agrees. Once in Neverland, however, the siblings have to contend with a few different dangers: Peter's sometimes mercurial nature, for one, and for another, the threat of Captain Hook and his fellow pirates.

This was a really, really interesting book to discuss in a college classroom. Gender roles are huge here, in a way that younger readers might not pick up on. There's a lot of underlying messages about growing up into mature adults, and the ending, when it comes, is bittersweet. Most of my classmates were surprised at the violence of the story: there are several instances when the boys are really threatened by the pirates, and there's actual deaths, not the Disneyified kind. (In addition, Tinker Bell can sort of be a bitch sometimes.)

This is actually one that I'm glad I didn't fully read until now--I wouldn't have appreciated it as much eight years ago, and I'm now really curious to break out my DVD of the 2003 version and see how it stacks up (pretty closely, according to my memory). This can be read to kids pretty safely--they won't even notice the violence, as it isn't lingered on too much--but is also a really thought-provoking and emotional read for adults.

***

Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw: My only acquiantance with anything Pygmalion-esque had been seeing My Fair Lady a few years ago, a show I wasn't quite enamored with. (I had a tough time understanding the Cockney accents, for one thing, which isn't an issue now that I've become acquainted with several British TV shows and other works of literature whose characters have strong accents, such as Wuthering Heights.) With that in my memory, I fully expected to hate this play with a passion.

I really should learn by now that more often than not, when I expect to hate something, I end up at least liking it. Shock, shock, surprise, surprise: I loved this play with everything I have. It wasn't the conventionally romantic drama the musical is. It's a really well-written look into the hearts and minds of two strong-willed individuals, Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle, and I enjoyed every page.

I'm sure we all know the story, but to recap: Eliza Doolittle is a poor flower-seller who comes to Professor Henry Higgins seeking lessons in elocution. She has aspirations to rise from the gutter of her current life and start anew in a flower shop, and to do that, she must reform the way she speaks. Hugely confident in himself and viewing Eliza as an intriguing project, Higgins takes her on, making a bet with his friend Colonel Pickering that he can pass her off as a duchess in a few months.

After that, we get a brief glimpse into Eliza's lessons, and then into her development into someone who can pass as an upper-class lady. I was really pleased with the depth of the play's characterizations and the range of issues it brought up. After all, don't we still judge people by the way they speak? Should we do as Higgins does, treating everyone exactly the same, or as Pickering does, treating Eliza with respect as he would a lady, even when she isn't one? What hold does a creator have over his creation?

Spoilers ahoy! What pleased me most about this one was the ending, as unpopular an opinion as that is. Shaw could have taken the easy way out and gone for the traditional romantic ending, but he didn't, and the play is so much the better for it, in my opinion. End spoilers.

All of these awesome classics can be found for free via Project Gutenberg. Go forth and read!

The Importance of Being Earnest: here.
Peter Pan: here.
Pygmalion: here. If anyone is looking for a print edition, I can't recommend this one enough. I'm a huge fan of the Enriched Classics line; their edition of Jane Eyre helped my understanding mightily, and this edition of Pygmalion had great notes and even some scenes that are normally excised.

In Which Trai Mini-Reviews 'A Doll's House' and 'The Secret Garden'

Mini-Reviewing The Classics!

With the advent of my Modern Drama and Young Adult Literature classes this semester, I'm getting to read some classic works that I've never read before. Hopefully, this post will kick off a semi-regular feature, as I get further into my semester.

Sometimes I don't review the classics I read, because it's difficult for me to think of things that haven't been said before. Likewise, I don't always review required reading, because my opinion might be unfairly biased. However, I liked both of these books more than I thought I would, and thought it would be interesting to do quick capsule reviews of each.

A Doll's House, by Henrik Ibsen: This is a classic drama, and, as my professor tells me, the start of drama as we know it. Ibsen actually had characters interacting with each other onstage in a natural fashion. It's funny to think that someone actually had to realize that might be a good idea!

Nora is married to Torvald Helmer, a banker who has a habit of infantilizing her and not allowing her to spend money. We learn that Nora is keeping a secret from her husband--to protect his health, she secretly took out a loan that financed a getaway to Italy. The law forbids women from handling money in any capacity, and the unscrupulous banker Nora borrowed from attempts to blackmail her into making Torvald give him a better position. The lies running rampant in the Helmer household eventually threaten to break their marriage apart.

My response on finishing this one was along the lines of, "Geez, what is everyone complaining about?!" I really loved this play, and its message was really radical for the time. Ibsen didn't like being labeled as a feminist, preferring to think of it in terms of human rights, but with that in mind, Nora is still a very, very strong female character who takes matters into her own hands in some really powerful ways. I really enjoyed seeing her self-discovery, as she realizes that the men in her life have always treated her like property and that she wants to have a life of her own.

The translation I read (the above-pictured Dover Thrift edition) was a really readable and flowing translation of the Norwegian, or at least it seemed like it. The dialogue didn't sound stilted and seemed like it could have conceivably been English originally. In other words, it didn't read like it was translated! (Occasionally, with, say, Stieg Larsson's books, translated prose can get clunky.) All in all, I really enjoyed this play, and naysayers be darned--I thought Nora was awesome!

***

The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett: Author Julie Buxbaum writes, "It seems to me that some kids’ books begin with 'Once upon a time, in a faraway kingdom' and some begin instead with a spoiled little girl orphaned by a cholera epidemic." And yeah, that seems to be the case, doesn't it? Having never read this as a child, not even knowing much about it, I was surprised by how charming I found this story.

Mary is living in India when she wakes up to learn that her parents and most of her household has died during the night of a cholera epidemic. (Yikes!) Sent to live with her always-absent uncle, Mary must finally learn to do things for herself, as she begins to look into the mysteries of the Manor and its gardens, one of which has not been entered for ten years.

I was surprised by how different this book was from standard children's literature. First off, waking up to dead parents is every kid's worst nightmare, and that's how this book starts! Second off, Mary is frequently called "spoiled" and "ugly" by the narrator, and it's no secret that we're not supposed to find her likable at all. It's really nice to see her mature and become someone more grounded and less spoiled, and I liked reading about her transformation.

My professor laughingly said that this is the type of book Michelle Obama would champion--it pretty much hits you over the head with the message, go outside! Exercise! But in that way, it's a nice book to give to kids, boy or girl alike (there's characters of each gender; either can enjoy!). I'd definitely recommend this one to kids who love nature, animals, and magic. It's not overly difficult to read and it's got a sweet message about how nature can be a healing force.

***

Hopefully, my journey with undiscovered classics will continue, and if you guys haven't picked up these before, either, why not? You can get them for free on Project Gutenberg!

A Doll's House: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2542
The Secret Garden: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/113

In Which Trai Reviews 'Rabbit Hole'

The Book: Rabbit Hole: A Play (Winner: 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama)

The Author: David Lindsay-Abaire

How I Found It: The forthcoming movie version with Aaron Eckhart and Nicole Kidman (trailer here) caught my eye because, well, I love Aaron Eckhart!

The Review: Every time I read a play, a good play, I always think to myself that I should read more of them. And I most certainly believe that I should; this one took me just under an hour to read, and sometimes I just need something short! This was the perfect companion for a bus ride length-wise, although I should really learn that reading emotional works in the view of the public is perhaps not wise!

As I mentioned above, I first heard of this play when the news came out about Aaron Eckhart's presence in the film version. Having read this, I'm really excited to see what that will look like. It should be a pretty meaty role for Nicole Kidman, and seeing as she hand-picked Eckhart to play her husband, I'm confident he can do no wrong.

This play, 157 pages long, is simple but highly affecting. It is a glimpse into a few months in the lives of Becca and Howie Corbett, a couple grieving the loss of their four-year-old son, Danny, a few months before. Danny was killed when he chased the family dog into the street and was subsequently hit by a young driver, Jason. Howie has found solace by going to a support group for grieving parents and secretly watching video tapes of Danny. Becca, meanwhile, is doing all she can to pack away remnants of their son--donating his clothes, hiding away his books and toys, and resenting friends who haven't made the effort to keep in touch after the loss.

Howie is trying to reconnect with his wife, but Becca's brash relations begin to get in the way. Izzy, Becca's sister, has just announced that she's pregnant, and Nat, her mother, insists on comparing the loss of her own son, Becca's brother, to Becca's entirely different loss. As we witness all of the characters interacting and not interacting, speaking and choosing not to speak, we get a sense of their grief and conflicted feelings.

Of course, all of this is heavy material, but I felt that it was handled very well and that it never became too much or too maudlin. In an author's note after the play, Lindsay-Abaire stresses that there should be no histrionics, no added emotion. Becca and Howie only cry once apiece, and that's it--that's all that's needed, really. It does an excellent job of showing the different ways in which people grieve, and how that can become complicated, especially between two significant others. I'd love to see this performed onstage, let alone on film.

I really enjoyed the play's natural flow and how it really captured the way people just talk. I think it's the most realistic-sounding play I've read so far. Almost every scene consists of straight conversation, and Lindsay-Abaire captured those rhythms really well. There's no stilted dialogue, no awkward phrasing that sounds as though a speechwriter gave it a once-over--it sounds exactly like it would if you were eavesdropping on some neighbors. Given how much I love dialogue (see my previous review for an example of how I rip books to shreds when dialogue sounds off!), this play was like a present wrapped up in a nice bow.

I liked the dynamic between Becca and Howie the best. Becca can't understand what Howie gets out of the support group; Howie can't understand why Becca seems to be intent on erasing Danny, intentionally or unintentionally. Their conversations were, as they should be, the standout of the play and made for the most emotional scenes, the ones where I teared up. The play touches on whether a person can possibly not be "grieving enough," and on the resentment one person can feel when another's method of grieving is pushed on them. (Becca isn't religious and rails against the support group for this reason.) I found myself perfectly able to see both sides of their arguments, which is quite a feat. Becca and Howie's halting attempts at reconnecting were well done. The subplots of the supporting cast--Nat, Izzy, and Jason--all made for interesting scenes and added to the "slice of life" feel of the play.

I can understand why this one won the Pulitzer. Anyone who has grieved a loved one can get something out of this play and think, "I've been there." I know I did. There's no real resolution, but the play ends with a slightly hopeful note. In that way, the play mirrors life. Maybe Becca and Howie will never be able to get over their loss, but they can just push forward and hope for tomorrow. Even if I feel it ended at the right spot, I couldn't help but wish it was longer when I reached the end. I really did enjoy reading about these characters, and the material, as heavy as it was, really made me think about the nature of grief. Highly recommended to readers of drama and those with an interest in the subject matter or the film version.

In Which Trai Reviews 'The Shape of Things: A Play'

Holy late review, Batman! Argh. I started writing this one on Monday but kept getting so unbelievably sidetracked. Here it is, nearly a week late.

The Book: The Shape of Things

The Author: Neil Labute

How I Found It: Seeing a clip of the movie in my theater class reminded me I was interested in this one. I read one of the other plays in the "trilogy", reasons to be pretty, in November; clicking on the drama tag will bring you to my review.

The Review: Adam Sorenson meets Evelyn in a museum. (Yes, you read their names right.) She is staring down a statue with a can of spray paint in her hand, ready to paint genitalia over a statue's modesty plaster. She believes the art isn't "true", since a town council voted to cover up the family jewels when they were deemed too lifelike. Adam, a guard at the museum, is attempting to stop her when instead he is drawn into her web, entranced by her. Before he knows it, he has asked Evelyn out and she is spraying her number into his coat.

When we next see Adam and Evelyn, they have been going out for a few weeks and they are meeting Adam's friends for dinner. Adam has started to do little things, such as lose some weight and keep a journal of his progress, at Evelyn's suggestion. His friends, Philip and Jenny, an engaged couple, notice the slight changes. Jenny in particular is pleasantly surprised-- Adam missed his chance with her a while back, and before long it becomes apparent that both of them regret that. As Evelyn and Adam's relationship builds, Adam's relationship with Philip and Jenny begins to gradually fall apart.

I have to say, I did like this better than reasons to be pretty; the subject matter is more interesting and this one made me think more about the overall impact of the play. As you could probably guess from the names, it's a modern day retelling of the fall of Man. I'm not a religious person, but I found this treatment of the story really interesting.

I have to give major props to whoever has to play Evelyn in a production. That has to be a very, very difficult role. Having seen the first ten or fifteen minutes of the movie, I definitely want to see the rest; I know Rachel Weisz is more than capable. Evelyn is the most interesting character and definitely the one who has to be played right for the production to work, I'd say. And geez, is she a powerhouse. The overall effect of the play is really chilling.

I can't say all that much about the play without giving away the ending, which is the point of it all. But it did get me thinking. The subject matter and resolution made it a more uncomfortable read than reasons to be pretty, so this is probably why it had more staying power in my mind. Labute has a really good eye for the obsession with beauty; I'm probably going to check out the last play in the trilogy, Fat Pig, within the next few weeks.

Overall, I feel as though his plays might become somewhat repetitive in the long run, since he tends to explore the same themes (the dynamic between men and women, obsession with beauty, etc.), but I do enjoy his style for now and think he has an interesting take on things. I'm still intrigued by his body of work and after all probably just paid him a royalty last night, when I bought one of my favorite movies (directed and partially written/adapted by him), Possession, on DVD. Heck, he might even get another royalty from me if I go to see the Death at a Funeral remake. So yep, Neil Labute is earning a living off of me, so I guess you could say he must be a pretty good author. :)

In Which Trai Reviews 'Reasons to Be Pretty: A Play'

The Book: Reasons to Be Pretty: A Play

The Author: Neil LaBute

How I Found It: Was assigned a scene between Greg and Steph in my acting class and was intrigued.

The Review: After reading the scene I was given for my class, I had high expectations for this play-- I could really relate to the feelings Steph espoused to Greg, and it looked like an awesome play.

Now that I've read it, I'm not quite sure how I feel. It was good, but not all that enlightening or original. It felt much more cinematical than a play should have-- the scene in the food court, especially, I could picture happening on a sitcom.

The play concerns four people in their twenties: Greg, Kent, Steph, and Carly. We open on a fight between Greg and Steph, a vicious one: Steph has been told by Carly, her friend, about a remark Greg, her longtime boyfriend, made to Kent, Carly's husband, about how she is "regular" compared to another girl. Greg tries to explain what he meant, but Steph won't have it-- she's convinced he meant it as an insult, and maybe he did.

The remark leads to the dissolution of their relationship, and Steph and Greg have numerous confrontations, including an amusing one where she lists all the things she doesn't like about him. The play proceeds to show Greg's life after Steph left him, as he deals with Kent and Carly. Each of the four characters gets a soliloquy where they tell the audience their thoughts on things.

This was one of the problems I had with the play: when in conversation with each other, the characters speak perfectly normally, just like regular humans do. During the soliloquys, however, they become inexplicably elegant. A character that seems dumb as a rock in conversation suddenly spouts these brilliant insights, and it seemed really jarring to me. If there's one thing I hate in works of fiction, it's inconsistencies in characterization.

The play was also really vulgar-- a lot of swear words and scatological humor thrown around for really no reason, other than apparently wanting to be authentic to the sound of twentysomethings today. I mean, I'm not bothered by it, as I'm close to being a twentysomething myself and, yes, I can have a mouth on me when I want to (and when I'm writing), but it didn't need to be quite so excessive.

Overall, I give it a marginal recommendation to readers of plays. I'm interested in more of LaBute's work (specifically In The Company of Men and The Shape of Things) but I hope I'll be more impressed than I was with this one.

In Which Trai Reviews 'Proof: A Play'

The Book: Proof: A Play

The Author: David Auburn

How I Found It: Knew vaguely of the movie, but was assigned a scene to perform in acting class as the character Catherine that made me cry when I acted it in front of the class.

The Review: To start off: I am not good with math. Numbers bug me, math escapes me, and this inability to do math makes me suck at science. The closest I will ever get to being a math or science geek is watching The Big Bang Theory every Monday.

I think that was what initially drove me away from the movie of the play-- all I knew was that the main character was a daughter of a famous mathematician and no siree Bob was I spending more time with math than I had to.

However, I'm glad I shied away from seeing the movie when I was fourteen or so-- I don't know if I would have liked it then, and that would have deprived me of the beautiful, beautiful experience of reading this play.

The play has only four characters and a very minimal set: the entirety of the action takes place on the back porch of an old house at varying times. The four characters are Robert, a brilliant but bipolar mathematician who passes away before the play begins; Catherine, his youngest daughter everyone believes may have inherited his disorder; Claire, her older sister who wants Catherine to come live with her just in case she is unstable; and Hal, a former student of Robert's who wishes to look through the 103 notebooks Robert left behind.

When the play starts, Catherine is shaken by what could be a dream or hallucination of her dead father, something the hallucination Robert warns could be a sign of bipolar disorder. Hal wakes her to tell her he's done looking through Robert's workspace, but that he believes there could be something important in the notebooks. Catherine accuses him of wishing to pass off her father's work as his own, but Hal vehemently denies the claims and even tries hitting on her. Things escalate until Catherine finds that Hal did take a notebook-- but the one in which Robert wrote about her during a lucid period. (Trust me, this is only the first scene in the play that made me cry.)

The play is so much more than the first scene, but I don't want to give anything away. I haven't read very many plays, but I think that this one has become my favorite-- even surpassing The Laramie Project, a beautiful work I still believe everyone should read. Laramie drew me to tears three times; Proof did at least five. The two flashback scenes in particular are absolutely heartbreaking. My mother felt worst for Catherine throughout the movie, but for me it was Robert, who wants desperately to believe he is lucid and working in the flashbacks, but instead learns the opposite.

This play had me at hello; from the moment I read the scene in acting class, I was dying to read the rest. I read it this afternoon in probably less than an hour or so; I know I'm going to read it many times after this. Don't let the math scare you; it's not as much a part of the play as you'd think. I agree with a reviewer who said that this play is for anybody who has ever been passionate about something-- for me, it's my writing, and I could perfectly understand the emotions of the characters. This is not a play about math; it is a play about human interactions, and it is a play about love.

I recommend this wholeheartedly to anyone who wants to read a gorgeous, perfectly done play (it even won the Pulitzer). And to anyone who needs a good cry.