Playwright Neil LaBute has a point to make: we are too obsessed with physical appearance.
And he drives that point home with a fury in his play “Reasons to be Pretty,” Next Stage Theatre Southwest’s current offering in Tucson.
It focuses on four working class people who struggle to find meaning in their lives and each other.
But that message is more subtle; watching this play it sometimes seems it’s about how many ways you can denigrate women.
Mark Klugheit directs the production with a smooth hand and an appreciation of LaBute’s gift for natural dialogue.
His cast doesn’t disappoint, either.
The play opens with a verbally violent fight between Greg and his girlfriend, Stephanie.
Samantha Cormier’s Stephanie is blind in her fury about what she considers a serious insult.
Taylor Rascher as Greg is very confused about her anger — he only said she had a normal face, after all. Stephanie isn’t happy with “normal.”
Cormier is delicious in the role, cursing and insulting and doing everything but physically attacking. Rascher gives a nuanced performance as Greg, a book-reading, confused young man trying to figure out what he wants in life.
Working at a warehouse with Greg are Kent (Lucas Gonzales) and his wife Carly (Taigé Lauren). Kent is, well, creepy. Women are objects to be commented crudely on, cheated on, slept with and thrown aside. Gonzales lept into this character with real gusto. Lauren’s Carly is beautiful but dismissed by her husband, and she handled the role with grace and with a shade of meekness.
LaBute is often in-your-face with his characters’ toxic masculinity, and “Reasons” is no exception. But while this isn’t a play that is easy to like, this is a good production that is worth seeing.
“Reasons to be Pretty” continues through Nov. 19 at the Temple of Music and Art’s Cabaret Theatre, 330 S. Scott Ave. Tickets are $22-$25 at tucne.ws/reasonspretty or 520-907-7209. The play runs about two hours, with one intermission.
