Open Wardrobes

Last night Kelly and I attended the opening night of Neil LaBute's Some Girl(s) which opens Walking Shadow's new season. I tend to be skeptical when I hear about some new playwright who won this award or that, or has been produced at some big New York theater. These things have ceased to impress me. Write a good script and then I will be impressed. After all, that's what really counts. I say this not to put down anyone's accomplishments, but to help explain that when I say I think Neil LaBute is an extremely talented playwright, this is not praise I often give.


Walking Shadow produced LaBute's Fat Pig a couple of years ago and I think it is still perhaps the best script that they have done. I am a big fan of Walking Shadow. They always give great production value, but for me the scripts they pick can be hit or miss. Last season's Amazons and Their Men, for example, was a well-done production of an only so-so script (which read to me like an early draft that needed much more depth). And the less said about the script to Caligula, the better. (I should add here that I loved Robots vs. Fake Robots, script and production alike.) But when I saw they were to do another LaBute script I was extremely excited, and I can honestly say LaBute has proved himself in my eyes to not be a one-hit wonder.


Some Girl(s) takes place in four scenes, each set in a different hotel room in a different city (and Kelly and I both delighted in the small touches the "maids" did during the scene changes to make each room slightly different, with different pillows on the bed, a different painting, the paper in a different place, and so on). In each scene the main character, Guy, meets with a different woman from his past (and later makes it clear that there have been many more), as he prepares himself for his upcoming wedding. On the surface Guy seeks to make amends for the wrongs he has done to these women, though he clearly has no idea about how to really go about doing so. The women differ greatly, from the high school sweetheart-turned-mother, to the older woman he had an affair with several years ago, to the alternative-sometimes-drug-addict. In the end Guy's motives for these reconnections become more murky and we are left unsure of how sincere he truly was. Clarence Wethern's portrayal makes Guy feel charming and likable, when he's not spurting out something guaranteed to insult any woman with a pulse. Wethern gives a wonderful performance, oozing good intentions, and aptly portraying Guy's inability to figure out how to connect to these different woman. And it is clear that Guy never really knew. Each of the woman gives a strong performance as well, particularly Anna Sundberg's fun-loving Tyler who seems to be the only one who feels at all charitable towards her ex-boyfriend and get, at least a little, why he is revisiting the past. And in a production such as this where everything seems to flow so seamlessly together, credit must go out to the director, here Brian Balcom who created a very natural-feeling atmosphere throughout. The set too was excellently done (courtesy of designer Steve Kath), and all the technical elements again reflect Walking Shadow's high production standards.


The script keeps things moving at a nice pace (although without an intermission and running at close to 2 hours I did find myself a little restless towards the end of the final scene). LaBute has a nice knack for writing very natural-sounding dialogue, replete with hesitations and rambling sentences, without taking these to a too-realistic extreme. And the play gives plenty of food for thought later, as Guy's actions in the last scene shed some new light on everything that has gone before. Is he a nice guy, if shallow, who just doesn't understand relationships? Or is he a manipulator who is using his own past purely for personal gain? Well, you have plenty of time to decide for yourself. Some Girl(s) continues tonight and runs through December 5th at the Pillsbury House Theater in Minneapolis. (Monday the 23rd is pay-what-you-can night.) So five out of five stars for a solid production all around. My advice? Spring for the Walking Shadow season ticket to also enjoy their productions this season of Jez Butterworth's Mojo in February and company member John Heimbuch's new work The Transdimensional Couriers Union in May.