Kirjahaku

Filthy Talk for Troubled Time is one of his earliest plays. A downbeat night at a topless bar exposes the gulf between the twitchy clientele and the waitresses who serve but despise them. The Mercy Seat examines a couple who, on the day after a world-changing atrocity, toy with exploiting it to start a new life. Some Girl(s) follows a young writer's panicked retreat from his imminent wedding as he seeks out old girlfriends and opens new wounds, while in This Is How It Goes the breakdown of a seemingly successful marriage is complicated by submerged bigotry and hatred. The collection also includes two short plays about relationships in crisis - A Second of Pleasure and Helter Skelter - which are in equal part tender and chilling.Together these plays form a complex and compelling portrait of the sexes - sometimes warring, sometimes loving, but never fully at peace.

'LaBute takes us to shadowy places we don't like to talk about, sometimes even to think about.' NewsdayObsession with surface and secrets runs through this second collection of Neil LaBute's work. The Shape of Things peels back the skin of modern-day relationships to ask how far someone might change themselves for love, or for art. In Fat Pig, a man confronts his friends' - and his own - fixation with Hollywood ideals of beauty when he falls for a 'plus size' young woman. In a Dark Dark House and In a Forest, Dark and Deep are twin tales of sibling conflict. In the first, estranged brothers must reconcile conflicting memories, after one asks for corroboration of childhood abuse. In the second, a man's offer to help his sister clear out her cottage brings a terrible confession into the light.The Shape of Things'What initially seems a touching study of student romance develops instead into a passionate discussion about the way art feeds on life.' Daily TelegraphFat Pig'As large as Helen is, the tender heart of the play is easily twice as big.' VarietyIn a Dark Dark House'LaBute toys with expectations and takes pleasure in our discomfort... The play does lead to a pretty dark place - but the ending is not without hope.' Daily MailIn a Forest, Dark and Deep 'It is billed as being about sibling rivalry, but in fact majors on far deeper, dangerous things: the yearning to be understood, female manipulation, and fascinated male disgust at a sister's lurid sexuality.' The Times

BashThree darkly brilliant one-act plays, unblinking portraits of the evils abroad in everyday life, first performed in 1999. 'You don't need to be familiar with Greek tragedy to admire LaBute's ability to illuminate the dark corners of the human mind . . . He writes with unblinking candour, unvarying incisiveness and the ear and eye for the tiny, telling fact that reveals a character floundering on the edge.' The TimesReasons to Be PrettyNominated for the Tony Award for Best Play, Reasons to Be Pretty explores love, language and power with fresh wit and insight.'Neil LaBute at his best. It says things about love and betrayal that are rarely put on stage . . . The play has the transfixing nastiness that has made LaBute one of the most disturbing theatrical presences of the last decade. Yet it also has an unexpected ingredient: a beating heart.' ObserverNow collected with its sequel, which follows the same four loveable characters - Reasons to Be Happy'A richly entertaining shard of tragicomedy . . . a snap survey of American masculinity in crisis.' Daily TelegraphIf I Needed SomeoneA drunken first date becomes an acutely observed dance of desire, expectation and consent. 'For all of its misunderstandings, misperceptions, and bristles, for all the insecurities and past hurt it opens for both characters, If I Needed Someone is the kind of first date that people looking for love dream of having.' Broadway WorldHow to Fight LonelinessA married couple call on a third man to help them make a desperate decision, in this compelling and unsettling drama. How to Fight Loneliness received its UK premiere at the Park Theatre, London, in April 2025. 'A play that will force you to consider your own sense of mortality . . . starkly devastating.' Spectrum

Neil LaBute's Bash is a collection of three darkly brilliant one-act plays. In 'Medea Redux', a woman tells of her complex and ultimately tragic relationship with her junior high-school English teacher. In 'Iphigenia in Orem', a Utah businessman confides in a stranger in a Las Vegas hotel room, confessing to an especially chilling crime. In 'A Gaggle of Saints', a young Mormon couple separately recount the violent events of an anniversary weekend in New York City. All three are unblinking portraits of the evils that are abroad in everyday life; each is distinguished by the raw and yet lyrical intensity that has become Neil Labute's signature.

How far would you go for love? For art? What would you be willing to change? Which price might you pay?Such are the painful questions explored by Neil Labute in The Shape of Things. A young student drifts into an ever-changing relationship with an art major while his best friends' engagement crumbles, so unleashing a drama that peels back the skin of two modern-day relationships, exposing the raw meat and gristle that lie beneath.The world première of The Shape of Things was presented at the Almeida, London, in May 2001.

It was so simple, just a few little bits in his diary, files that he kept in longhand with all his thoughts and wishes and dreams. Bobby thinks he's simply lending his sister a hand with clearing out her cottage in the forest. But it's a dark and stormy night and his sister has a secret. I know it can't be that bad, whatever was the reason this guy left here in such a hurry... In a Forest, Dark and Deep by Neil LaBute premiered at the Vaudeville Theatre, London, in March 2011.

Greg is overheard admitting that his girlfriend Steph is no beauty, but that he wouldn't change her for the world. She is devastated; he can't see what he's done wrong. Meanwhile, Greg's friend Kent alternates between boasting about how gorgeous his wife Carlyis and chasing after a hot new colleague.The final part of Neil LaBute's 'beauty trilogy' (following The Shape of Things and Fat Pig) about society's obsession with looks, Reasons to Be Pretty premiered in the UK at the Almeida Theatre, London, in November 2011.'[The Shape of Things] is LaBute's thesis on extreme feminine wiles, as well as a disquisition on how far an artist can go in the name of art . . . Like a chiropractor for the soul, LaBute is looking for realignment, listening for the crack.' Elle'A heart-warming tale from America's master misanthrope.' Independent on Fat Pig

Three years after a difficult breakup, Steph and Greg are wondering if they can start over again. The trouble is, she's married someone else and he's started a relationship with her best friend Carly. Meanwhile, Carly's ex-husband Kent wants her back, and even more so when he hears about her new romance with his best friend Greg. As emotions run high, all four find themselves entangled in a web of hidden agendas and half-truths in their pursuit of a happy life.A companion piece to the acclaimed Reasons to Be Pretty, Neil LaBute's Reasons to Be Happy received its UK premiere at Hampstead Theatre, London, in March 2016.

In Seconds of Pleasure, acclaimed award-winning director and playwright Neil LaBute, brings to the page his cutting humor and compelling take on the shadowy terrain of the human heart. Best known for his controversial plays and films, his short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and Playboy. Seductive and provocative, each potent and pithy tale in Seconds of Pleasure finds men and women exploiting -- or at the mercy of -- the hidden fault lines that separate them: In ?Time Share,” a woman leaves her family at their vacation home after discovering her husband in a compromising situation; a middle-aged man obsesses over a scab on the calf of a pretty young girl in ?Boo-Boo”; and a vain Hollywood actor gets his comeuppance in ?Soft Target.” LaBute infuses Seconds of Pleasure with his trademark wit and black humor, and unleashes his imagination in stories that offer unflinching insight into our very human shortcomings and impure urges with shocking candor.

Can someone honestly love a person whom they have deceived for thirty years? This is the central question behind Wrecks, Neil LaBute's latest foray into the dark side of human nature. Meet Edward Carr: loving father, successful businessman, grieving widower. In this concise powerhouse of a play, LaBute limns the boundaries of love, exploring the limits of what society will accept versus what the heart will desire. This collection also features rarely staged short plays, including "Liars' Club," "Coax," and the never-before-seen "Falling in Like."

What if God told you to be a better person but the world wouldn't allow it? Such is the dilemma facing Joe Smith, a run-of-the-mill white-collar businessman who survives an office shooting and is subsequently touched by what he believes to be a divine vision. His journey toward personal enlightenment--past greed and lust and the other deadly sins--is, by turns, tense, hilarious, profane, and heartbreaking. Exploring the narrow path to spiritual fulfillment and how strewn it is with the funny, frantic failings of humankind, The Break of Noon showcases Neil LaBute at his discomfiting best.