The Shape of Things: Show and Tell

The Shape of Things is a play written by Neil LaBute in 2001. It premiered at the Almeida Theatre in London. Lebute directed the play himself and he also directed the 2003 film adaptation.  The play has been done several times over in many places including the Bernie West Theater in New York City and it again in London at The Gallery Soho.

In The Shape of Things we follow the character Adam Sorenson, who is an English Li major at Clarkson College, as he meets and begins to date Evelyn Ann Thompson, an art student. She slowly begins to make ‘improvements’ to Adam, dictating what he should wear and who he should hang out with and how he should look. She even goes as far as to convince him to get a nose job. The new and improved Adam ends up having a tryst with his friend Phillip’s girlfriend Jenny. When Evelyn finds out she demands that Adam never see either of them again or she will leave him. He willing gives them up.  In the end we find out that Evelyn has tricked Adam into being her thesis project and she rejects him when he proposes to her.

One dramaturgical choice Lebute makes is to make a literary illusion to the Bible by naming his characters after Adam and Eve (Eve being short of Evelyn). I know that it’s the most obvious thing Lebute does, but that’s why I think it’s important. . He wouldn’t have made such an obvious reference if he didn’t want you to think about what it meant, and what it has to do with his story. And given that in the Bible Eve convinces Adam to do something (eat the fruit of knowledge) that will change him, and that’s exactly what Evelyn does. And once both Adams are changed you can’t get them back.

Another dramaturgical choice Lebute makes, is to not tell the audience what Evelyn whispers in Adam’s ear. Again, an obvious one but an important one. What she whispers is what she claims is the only true thing she has ever told him. Lebute leaves what she whispered up to the imagination of the audience, of the director, of the actor, ect. This decision is very important because it leaves people questioning.

Noises Off! Response

In my opinion, a very persistent motif in Noises Off! is the use of pet names, or in the case of act three the lack of pet names. In the first act of the play all the actors and Lloyd use several different pet names, such as ‘darling’ and ‘love’ and ‘honey’, to talk to each other and they use them almost constantly, but in the second act the use of pet names has dwindled and by the third act they don’t use any pet names at all.

I think the tag line for this play is “Down comes the curtain.” I think the unifying principal of this play is ‘the unraveling of the curtain’ and I think the falling down of the curtain at the end of this play not only fits but it describes the whole play, in that the play is unraveling throw out the whole show and in the end it just falls apart and hits the ground. There is nothing more a play can do after the curtain falls because it generally means the play is over. This play with in a play is over when the curtain falls down.

Glass of Water Response

I would say that the protagonist of this play, if I had to choose one, would be Bolingbroke. It is his desire to stop the war from happening that causes him to interfere with everyone else’s business. The Duchess is the clear antagonist of the play, what with her desire to start a war and have an affair, and Bolingbroke manages to thwart both of her plots. I think because of this reason, he is the person the audience is supposed to root for (if they actually do, that depends).  Bolingbroke is definitely the character who gets the most stage time, and his goals are so tightly wound with what happens to the other characters that he has to manipulate them to get what he wants and thus, he moves the plot forward.