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Jan. 29--TAMPA -- How successful is the Jobsite Theater's production of Neil LaBute's "This Is How It Goes," which opened Thursday night at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center?
Consider that for the full, unbroken 90 minutes of the one-act drama, the small audience in the intimate Shimberg Playhouse sat in silence, paying rapt if sometimes uncomfortable attention.
This is not theater for the casual playgoer seeking mere entertainment, nor for the easily offended, weak-hearted, politically correct or puritanically inclined (the "f word" and the "n word" are used repeatedly).
It is edgy, challenging, profane, violent and raw, sometimes offensive, sometimes shocking, but always, always riveting.
The play starts with a bare stage and an actor whose opening line, spoken directly to the audience, is "OK, this is how it goes."
At once, the audience is drawn into his story, his vision and his confidence. But as a self-described "unreliable narrator," he re-creates, re-enacts, reinvents and interprets what is essentially a romantic triangle between an interracial couple (white wife, black husband) and himself (white playwright).
Or perhaps it is only a sordid tale of a cruel conspiracy between the husband and him. Or perhaps it is a tender love story between the wife and him. Or perhaps it is all of the above. Or at least some of them. Or perhaps none of them.
Perhaps the story is a mere figment of his imagination and has no substance at all.
By raising these issues in this provocative way, "This Is How It Goes" is as much about art and writing, about truth and fiction, about "a half-remembered version of one side of things" as it is about the lives of its characters and the action that unfolds on the stage.
The play engages the audience on both the visceral and intellectual levels in a way few plays even attempt, let alone succeed at (as this one does).
Needless to say, the role of the narrator is critical to the success of the production, and actor Ryan McCarthy is compelling in the role. He moves the story -- and the audience -- nimbly along, managing to be both charming and disgusting, convincing and unscrupulous.
As the husband, David Dolphy seems alternately sympathetic and sinister but always strong, while Heather Scheffel as the woman is the mild-mannered, naive center around which the two men circle, eying each other warily and preparing to square off.
Directed by the Jobsite's own Ami Sallee Corley, these three actors give powerful performances in a minimalist production with little to aid them and little to hide behind in the way of costumes or props.
This is actors' theater at its best and exciting to watch.
The Jobsite is to be commended for bringing this 2005 work by LaBute to Tampa, but would have been well-advised to include something more about the controversial playwright in the program notes.
In brief, LaBute was born in Detroit in 1963, studied theater at Brigham Young University, did graduate work at New York University and the Royal Academy of London, knocked around a bit and then proceeded to shake up the worlds of theater and filmmaking with a prolific outpouring of work, including "In the Company of Men" (a play in 1992 made into a movie in 1997) and films such as "Your Friends and Neighbors" (1998) and "Nurse Betty" (2000).
He has had plays shut down because they offended somebody with the power to shut them down; he has been savaged by critics; and he has won many a prestigious award, including the Filmmakers Trophy at the Sundance Film Festival.
That is what happens to daring and visionary artists who will not be silenced or tow the company or cultural line.
When pessimists bemoan the state of the American theater and despair over who there is to take the place of, say, a Sam Shepard, a Tennessee Williams or an Edward Albee, one answer is Neil LaBute.
And when local audiences wonder which theater has the courage to produce him, one answer is Jobsite.
THEATER REVIEW
This Is How It Goes
WHAT: Jobsite Theater presents Neil LaBute's exploration of manipulation, exploitation, race and infidelity in a story about an interracial love triangle.
WHERE:Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, Shimberg Playhouse, 1010 N. MacInnes Place, Tampa
WHEN: Through Feb. 11; 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday; 4 p.m. Sunday
HOW MUCH: $19.50 and $24.50; (813) 229-7827
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Copyright (c) 2007, Tampa Tribune, Fla.
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