The trouble with details
Rocky spots in Fat Pig’s presentation, acting obscure play’s message.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
It’s easy to spout off the old sayings we learned growing up, like “it’s the inside that counts” or “you can’t judge a book by its cover.” But according to Neil LaBute, the playwright behind Fat Pig, when the human heart gets involved, it’s just not that easy. The Weekend Theater’s most recent effort explores our culture’s attitudes toward weight and if love really does conquer all — including the bathroom scale.
The Plot: Tom is a young, successful businessman whose lunch break turns into an unexpected foray into romance when he shares a table with Helen. She’s smart, funny and attractive, but there’s just one problem: She’s undeniably fat. As time progresses, Tom struggles to reconcile his rapidly deepening love for Helen with the stigma attached to dating an overweight woman, all while facing a near-constant barrage of questions and accusations from his co-workers, Jeannie and Carter.
The Cast: Without a doubt, the strongest members of this four-member cast are the two women. Melissa Neal, a Weekend Theater veteran — and for good reason — yet again displays her ability to not just act but to truly become the character she portrays. Most overweight female characters in movies, plays or on TV are depicted in one of two ways: The helpless, perpetually downtrodden fat girl or the defensive, obnoxious “big-boned” woman with an attitude. Surely, as LaBute would have wanted, Neal successfully blasts through the stereotypes and portrays a real person — someone with a strong and endearing personality who still falls victim to self-deprecation and insecurity, no matter what their Achilles’ heel. Sarah Wessman uses an unlikely combination of humor, sincerity, and at times, downright viciousness to capture Jeannie, Tom’s ex-fling who’s none too happy that she’s been outdone by a fat girl. It’s tempting to view Wessman’s character as “the bad guy,” but even she’s able to convey her own insecurities and a sense of humanity along the way.
The Good: My favorite scenes were the ones involving Tom, Carter and Jeannie. While some of the other scenes felt slightly forced, watching these three interact in the confines of Tom’s office was not unlike watching your own friends. Between Ian Moore’s amusing portrayal of Carter as an instigating, meddling cad, Jeannie’s dynamic aggression and Justin Pike as a convincingly passive and indecisive Tom, this trio perfectly covers the entire range of human emotion and interaction when they are on stage together.
The Bad: The most frustrating parts in this otherwise great play are in the details. A screen announces the title of each scene; for those in the front row, it is nearly impossible to make out the words, which are warped from being projected across the terrain of the set. Some scenes are accompanied by projected images — at one point, there is a picture of a deli counter, I imagine to leave no doubt in the audience members’ minds that the characters are, in fact, eating in a restaurant — that seemed cheesy and unnecessary. And most regrettably, Pike — who nails the portrayal of Tom’s inner turmoil — foils his own performance with an unusual habit of audibly scoffing after almost every single line.
The Bottom Line: Despite a couple of rocky spots along the way, The Weekend Theater’s version of Fat Pig makes both a daring and important statement not only about the American perception of weight, but also the insecurities every person — fat or thin — faces.
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