Reasons to Be Pretty
Spend a funny and touching night watching the deterioration of a relationship.
Overview
You know you're in for a night of good theatre when you're greeted with an opening scene of two people screaming and chasing each other round the set. It's the perfect opening for a play which depicts the gradual deterioration of a relationship as unspoken truths are brought to the surface.
Steph (Julia Grace) is angry at Greg (Andrew Hnery) because she's found out through a friend that Greg has said something not too flattering about her face. Her reaction and his insubstantial defence of his actions cause her to leave. Gradually we're introduced to the other friends on the scene Carly (Lucy Maunder), Steph's friend, and Kent (Stephen James King), Greg's colleague and supposed best bud and we discover that it's not just Greg and Steph that are feeling lost in their lives and relationships.
Written by Neil LaBute, known for his recurring commentary on beauty and its all-too-powerful effect on the world, this is the Australian premiere of Reasons to Be Pretty, and director James Beach has done a bang-up job. The American accents are initially jarring, as they tend to be on stage, but everyone maintains a solid American drawl, especially King, who's brutish gum-chewing and distinctive eye-blinking epitomises the stereotypical American slob.
While the first act gets bogged down in the singular issue of who said what and what it meant, the second goes on to flesh out the characters into fully formed beings with whom, by the end of the play, the audience is emotionally attached. Every new revelation serves the purpose of highlighting who the bad guys really are, quite different from whom you assume at the beginning of the play. Henry, who plays Greg and co-produced this show, is a restrained but immoveable force delivering LaBute's biting one-liners with ease, while Grace's Steph, who chews up the scenery while she gradually tears it down in the first act, comes back with a powerful restraint in the second. Maunder's Carly, while she has the least inflammatory of roles, is revealed as a quiet force by the end.
Whether you're familiar with LaBute's work or are interested in a simple evening of modern theatre, there are plenty of reasons to check out Reasons to be Pretty.
