Pretty Familiar

Playwright Neil LaBute has long enjoyed a reputation for writing male characters who behave very, very badly. And though the Off-Broadway premiere of his latest play, reasons to be pretty, scored him reams of reviews heralding a new maturity, it might be fairer to say that audiences are the ones who have matured.

Now immune to outrageous behavior thanks to endless seasons of reality television series, we’re able to see past LaBute’s pyrotechnics to the people beneath the cruelty. LaBute is really still writing the same show about men being mean; he thinks the world is still a place where the word “cunt” can elicit shocked laughter. That need to be shocking is just one of the many threadbare devices LaBute draws on to jumpstart his limping Broadway debut.

reasons to be pretty’s story and characters aren’t anything fresh. Greg (Thomas Sadoski) finds himself dumped by his long-term girlfriend Steph (Marin Ireland) over a comment he made about her “regular” face. Her reaction astounds both Greg and his alpha male friend and co-worker Kent (Steven Pasquale), a man who refuses to let his security guard wife prevent him from being a dude. Crass and vulgar, Kent is ultimately one of the reasons Greg comes to understand about Being a Man.

LaBute’s script is both disingenuous and obvious. Steph and Greg’s first post-breakup encounter takes place at the food court of a mall, because blue collar workers—even those who spend their downtime at work reading Poe, Hawthorne and Irving, as Greg does—meet their exes in malls in LaBute’s vision of suburbia. There, Steph recites a lacerating list of the things she has always hated about Greg, beginning with his thinning hair and working down to his finger-length toes. Men may behave badly, we think, but this Steph can meet them and raise them. Except LaBute has Steph tearfully admit that the entire list is fictional, just a sad-girl way to hurt Greg, a confession that betrays the tough, angry Steph and the audience.

Not that Steph’s metamorphosis from wounded avenger to screaming harpy is far-fetched, given Ireland’s underwhelming presence on stage. She’s at her best when Steph is at her most injured as a woman whose boyfriend doesn’t consider her beautiful. The opening sequence should be a powerhouse of ringing condemnation, but Ireland can’t inspire fear. Even when she throws a chair, we never believe she’s aiming for Greg.

At least Ireland has the opportunity of a few riveting moments. Sadoski is stuck as the sheepish, confused lump who works a dead-end job and reads classic American literature, while Pasquale gives the illusion that Kent is constantly preening in front of a mirror, focused on getting as much pleasure our of life no matter the cost to his wife or friends. Eventually, Greg and Kent must have a showdown to symbolize Greg’s new emotional breakthrough, a fight scene that is so ludicrously bad that it becomes the play’s unintended comedic highlight.

And then there’s Perabo as Kent’s wife Carly, whose performance is centered in her ponytail. Lacking the skills and technique to give even the illusion that her character isn’t a stereotype, Perabo makes Carly alternately sunny smiles or bewildered hurt, with no stops in between, even when Carly starts asking the scary questions that might destroy her marriage. Somehow, though, her performance is a perfect fit for LaBute’s play. Perabo doesn’t pretend that there’s more to the banal, stale story about an overgrown boy becoming a man than there is.

>reasons to be pretty

Open run. The Lyceum Theatre, 149 W. 45th St. (betw. 6th & 7th Aves.), 212-239-6200; times vary, $31.50–$115.50.