If You're in SLC, Go See This Play

And then call me, because - DAMN, if I didn’t live 800 miles away.

Since reading the Salt Lake Tribune’s article for ‘Fat Pig’, I’ve been kicking myself for ever having moved away. Forget the new job, new city, new life – I could be watching some quality theater RIGHT NOW.

Granted, I am a little bit biased because eBay’s own dear Stacy is the LEAD, but also? This play sounds complicated and kick ass and *gasp* controversial. In Salt Lake City. I know, you’re shocked. Anybody who claims Salt Lake City is boring just isn’t paying any attention. 

From the Salt Lake Tribune: If you’re a woman with genes like Stacey Utley-Bernhardt’s and you want to work in theater, you’ll play what’s euphemistically referred to as “character roles.” 
   ”You’re the drunk maid, the nerd or the evil stepmom. That’s how you get jobs as a plus-size actor,” Utley-Bernhardt says after a costume-fitting session trying on Torrid lingerie just days before her first onstage bedroom scene. 
   Utley-Bernhardt landed the lead role of the girlfriend, Helen, in a play where – you gotta love playwright Neil LaBute for this – all of the play’s bite is exposed in its title: “Fat Pig.” Pygmalion Productions’ regional premiere opens Thursday (Sept. 28 ~jules) and runs through Oct. 14.

I actually just heard of this guy. With the recent release of The Wicker Man, (he wrote the screenplay) WitchVox had a lot to say about his reinterpretation of the classic film - mostly how he has a lot of issues with women. He kinda sounded like a dick. But what do I know? I haven’t seen either movie.

It’s this further description of Stacey’s play that makes me wonder if there’s a little more to Mr. LaBute, and I wish I could go to see for myself. Maybe he’s got something to say that requires a little more thinking, or at least an evening’s worth of consideration:

“Fat Pig” is just the latest salvo in the mean-spirited battle of the sexes raging in the prolific writer’s work. But thanks to the character of Helen’s boyfriend, Tom, a role created by “Entourage’s” Jeremy Piven, it’s hard to know just who is the play’s biggest pig. “By contrast to plus-sized Helen, Tom isn’t so much a will-o’-the-wisp as a wuss of the will,” wrote John Lahr in The New Yorker.
   Yet it’s because LaÂBute continually sparks controversy for his investigations of misogyny – or possibly misanthropy – that his creation of such a plum role, a romantic lead, for plus-sized female actors seems incongruous or at least deliciously ironic. “Often, oddly enough,” the writer says, “the ingenue part for both genders is the least interesting.”
   Yet for all the revolutionary nature of the big-hearted role of Helen, what makes “Fat Pig” so subversive, so striking, is that the play offers no feel-good “Vagina Monologues” explorations of fat liberation or other feminist-friendly themes. Instead, in classic LaBute style, the drama unfolds against the backdrop of corporate America, which makes the relationship story seem more politically important and less confessional. Tom’s colleagues, Jeannie and Carter, act as stand-ins for the audience, their caustic comments dismissing Helen and all fat people, voicing the kind of bigotry that people often think but rarely say.

My lazy head hasn’t been asked to process any serious thespian action beyond the Endless Adventures of Meretwit and McDreamy for, oh, 3 years now, and I think it’s this part of our brains that shrivel up and die that explain the crap-assery that is 7th Heaven. 

Someone’s watching it.

There’s tv, and then there’s theatre. God knows I love my tv. He even knows how much I’d love Tivo. God certainly knows how much I’ve tried convincing Travis how much less tv I’d actually watch if we HAD Tivo. But does he believe me? Noooooooo. There is no Tivo at my house.

There is, instead Trav’s newest Magic Wand, a la’ Sharper Image . A single miracle of technology that enables us to manage all the other technology crammed into our media cabinet. With a single remote, Trav can manage the tv, the receiver, the cablebox AND the DVD player. (Can you hear the harps? The singing? La-laaa-LAAA! Halleluja!!)

My husband, the tv genius. Me? I’m the dork who screws it all up just trying to change the channel.

Jules: “How do I scroll through the guide?!”

Travis: “What did you do?”

Jules: “I hit ‘guide’ and then down on the left thingy. And then the screen went black. So then I hit the ‘mode’ button. A couple of times. And then I got pissed so I turned off the receiver, because if I can’t SEE it, I certainly don’t want to HEAR it.”

Travis: “What on earth are you TALKING ABOUT?! None of that makes ANY SENSE!!”

See Trav? GOD KNOWS.

You don’t have to deal with remotes in live theater. You just have to show up and turn your brain on. Maybe dress up a little while you’re at it.

Maybe I should do that more often.

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© 2006, jules.maas. All rights reserved.