Wrecks Not Entirely a Wreck
Karl Keff as Ed Carr in Neil Labute's "Wrecks," playing at the Balagan.
We like Neil LaBute because we also actively dislike most people. However, the degree to which we distrust others differs—personally, we think everybody’s a sociopath (to one degree or another), while LaBute’s plays and films deal with individuals who are downright psychopathic.
That trademark attribute is on display in The Community Theatre’s production of Wrecks and Other Plays, a collection of LaBute’s rarely-staged short works, his so-called "group of bastards who have waited to find a home," playing at the Balagan Theatre for one final weekend (tix $15). Thursday and Saturday is one set of plays, while Friday and Sunday is another, with the titular work performed every night. (Added bonus: if you buy tickets to one night, you can also get in to the other for no additional charge.) We saw the Thursday/Saturday lineup, which started out with a short piece about a guy waiting to meet a girl from an online chatroom for their first date. The actor, Michael Harris, displays a palpable degree of Woody Allen-like nervousness and an admirable amount of audience eye contact. The degree to which you appreciate the lack of fourth wall depends on how much you like meta, and whether or not you find it annoying for a character to talk about the fourth wall as he breaks the fourth wall. Meanwhile, the character of the girl (Sachie Mikawa) is severely underwritten (makes sense, as LaBute kinda hates women), so as you find out more about the characters, the "revelations" about them just end up falling flat, since you neither know nor care about this random girl.
"Wrecks," on the other hand, is a one-man one-act of a widower eulogizing his dead wife to the audience as the funeral takes place off-stage. We’re not sure if we found this play more arresting because of the writing or the acting—the acting is strong to be sure; Karl Keff gives an energetic, marathon monologue. It’s just him, some photos, and a casket, and yet he makes even fake-smoking compelling. But once again, LaBute takes what could be a touching, even human, tribute of a bereaved man for his wife and has to turn it into something twisted, and once again the "revelations" of the play had us saying, "Oh, come ON, Neil." While In the Company of Men had a truly shocking ending, both of these works had us wishing for a denouement a little less out of the Shyamalan instruction manual. There’s good reason why these playlets (and the playwright) are considered bastards.
