The Shape of Things

by Neil LaBute
Directed by Allen Phelps
Greene Theater

• Thursday, November 1 8pm
• Friday, November 2 8pm
• Saturday, November 3 2pm **Talkback following the performance**
• Saturday, November 3 8pm

In a world where so many young people are too busy to overcome loneliness, many students question what they would do for love.

What qualifies as Art and what responsibilities do we have as artists to those we wish to enlighten or disturb? The show resonates within the fast paced, overly ambitious life of college students in America and how the aspirations of a successful future denies the chances for a true understanding of who they really are and how they should treat others.

Dramaturgical Notes:

Art and Morality: How far is too far?

by Jen Herrell

Neil LaBute sets The Shape of Things at a liberal arts college in a non-specific Midwestern town. It is a setting created to allow the students their own small world, set apart to discover themselves as they grow into adulthood. College is a place for students to learn who they are, what they believe and begin to mold themselves into who they want to be. They begin to recreate themselves, molding their own lives and those around them. They become the artists of their own lives. Particularly for the four characters in LaBute’s play, they have to face tough questions dealing with the nature of art and if there is room for morality within it. When it comes to art, does ‘too far’ exist?

Defining art is a difficult task, and the simplest solution is to define art as form plus content. Form is dictated solely by the artist, whereas the content is only partially produced by the designer. Content is created not only by what the artist puts into a piece, but more so from what the viewer brings to it. When an artist creates something, he takes some important meaning for himself and presents it as his statement for others to judge. The spectator can simply agree or disagree with the artist, but more often than not, they draw their own conclusions based on their own backgrounds and beliefs. This judgment is often far removed from anything the artist intended.

So then what about morality? If everything is art, then life itself is art and there must be some kind of morality in all art, even if it is simply that someone must pay the consequences for the work. Art must be responsible to some extent. On the contrary, perhaps it all simply depends on who the audience is. In the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde speaks that in good art, the artist is not seen in the art, but rather hidden by it. Because the viewer takes from it what he or she wants, there is no such thing as moral or immoral art, only art itself. He concludes that since art mirrors the spectator, not the artist or life, “All art is quite useless”.

The majorities of LaBute’s works challenge his audience focus on the irresponsible behavior of his characters and attempt to find any redeeming qualities. His works use metaphors that disgust, assault and force the audience to search for morality. In The Mercy Seat, he presents a man toying with the idea of leaving his wife in the midst of 9/11. Could he use such a disaster as a chance to disappear and start fresh? In Bash: Latter-Day Saints, he forces the audience to consider and question the religious immorality of three stories connected by their character’s affiliation with the Mormon church; one where a man kills his infant child to save his job, one in which a gay man is beaten, and a third where a girl kills her young son in order to get back at her teacher whom fathered the child. How is it possible for religious people to commit such outrageously horrible crimes? In The Shape of Things, LaBute uses connections to the Adam and Eve story and the myth of Pygmalion to challenge us to consider the nature of art and how it fits into and transforms our very different lives. However ruthless and brutal his questions, LaBute’s purpose is never to give us his opinion on right and wrong, but rather for us to process it for ourselves and make up our own minds. After all, all art is subjective, right?