Twenty-two years on Neil LaBute’s take on Pygmalion – in which a young female artist turns a nerd into a stud – still has pulling power. How else to explain the presence of Brian ‘Succession’ Cox in Row C last night, complete with a Logan Roy baseball cap, shades and a scowl?
Though dated by its references to Richard Gere and the TV series Kung Fu – and a cover of Time Magazine speculating on Hillary Clinton standing as a sentator – the play is a slick and efficient black comedy of ideas. It’s well-served here by director Nicky Allpress in a brisk staging, stylishly designed by Peter Butler, with a cracking post-punk soundtrack. There are pleasing, well-shaped performances from Luke ‘Bridgerton’ Newton and Amber ‘Peaky Blinders’ Anderson in the lead roles.
The play is on the softer, more marketable end of the theatre of cruelty LaBute generated in his purple period from 1997 to 2002, driven more by plot than character, and preoccupied with objective and subjective truth, in art and in life. If that sounds heavy, don’t worry: it’s also very funny, with dollops of sexual tension, and an acute sense of how oppressive life in a small college town can be. There’s also an element of wish fulfilment here that works on multiple levels: a dweeb gets a hot girl, but she remains absolutely in control; a commercial play for four attractive young actors is wrapped around a discussion of the nature of perception.
Adam and Evelyn (see what they did there?) meet at an art gallery where he’s working to pay for his English degree, and she’s intent on spray-painting genitals onto a sculpture whose crotch has been prudishly covered up. Soon they are in a relationship, and she is reshaping Adam’s diet, his exercise regime, his sexual parameters, and his nose. And destabilising his relationship with his engaged friends, oafish Phil (Majid Mehdizadeh-Valoujerdy) and sweet Jenny (Carla Harrison-Hodge).
The romantic betrayals among the four and the once-shocking swearing seem almost quaint now, but the humour and the ideas remain strong. Is Evelyn wrong to change Adam if she makes him fitter, more attractive and confident – “better” by society’s standards? Is his enjoyment of their relationship lessened when her purpose is revealed? And is “gallant” actually “medieval for ‘loser’”?
Newton manages to dork himself down convincingly in the early scenes – all specs, bad fringe and apologetic posture – before his innate handsome swagger is allowed to emerge: even then, he maintains a touching vulnerability. Anderson has a deliciously insinuating, watchful predatoriness as Evelyn. Phil and Jenny are little more than functional characters, but they’re given a cartoonish kind of life here.
Adam’s anger in his final confrontation with Evelyn isn’t totally convincing, and the play never quite lands a killer blow. But the plot is as finely engineered as a sports car and carries you away just as smoothly.
Park Theatre, to 1 July; parktheatre.co.uk
