Description

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A startling dissection of cruelty and artistic creation from the author of In the Company of Men and Your Friends and Neighbors

In a modern version of Adam's seduction by Eve, The Shape of Things pits gentle, awkward, overweight Adam against experienced, analytical, amoral Evelyn, a graduate student in art. After a chance meeting at a museum, Evelyn and Adam embark on an intense relationship that causes shy and principled Adam to go to extraordinary lengths, including cosmetic surgery, and a betrayal of his best friend, to improve his appearance and character. In the process, Evelyn's subtle and insistent coaching results in a reconstruction of Adam's fundamental moral character. Only in a final and shocking exhibition does Evelyn reveal the nature of her interest in Adam, of her detached artist's perspective and sense of authority--to her, Adam is no more than "flesh.... one of the most perfect materials on earth. Natural, beautiful, and malleable." Labute's latest work is an intense and disturbing study not only of the uses of power within human relationships, but also of the ethics involved in the relationship of art and life. To what extent is an artist licensed to shape and change her medium or to alter the work of another artist? What is acceptable artistic material? At what point does creation become manipulation, and at what point does creation destroy? Or, is the new Adam, handsome and confident if heart broken, an admirable result of the most challenging artistic endeavor? The Shape of Things challenges society's most deeply entrenched ideas about art, manipulation, and love.

About the Author

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Neil Labute—an acclaimed playwright, screenwriter, and filmmaker—is the author of plays including The Shape of Things, The Mercy Seat, Fat Pig, and the Tony Award-nominated Reasons to Be Pretty. He has written and directed films including In the Company of Men (starring Aaron Eckhart), The Shape of Things (starring  Paul Rudd and Rachel Weisz), and the 2006 American adaptation of The Wicker Man (starring Nicholas Cage).

Praise For…

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“LaBute meticulously plans that the shocking, climatic revelations should cast dark light upon his apparently average people.” —Nicholas de Jongh, The Standard

“LaBute's great gift is to live in and to chronicle that murky area of not knowing, which mankind spends much of its waking life denying.” —John Lahr, The New Yorker

“A piece whose intricate layers of treachery are worthy of David Mamet.” —Paul Taylor, The Independent