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Fat Pig

Presented by The Bakehouse Theatre Company
Reviewed Saturday 14th July 2012

Neil LaBute’s charmingly titled play looks at self image, peer pressure, body image, and societal pressure, through the social interactions between four people. Directed by Jesse Butler this production has plenty of pace and the often acrimonious dialogue is delivered like a cobra, spitting venom. He also creates lighter, romantic moods to counterbalance the bitter moments.

The set design, by Butler and Peter Green, divides the stage into three main areas, the cafeteria, a restaurant and the office, the latter becoming Tom’s lounge room with a minor move of furniture. Stephen Dean’s lighting design works with the set to make it clear where we are at any time.

Tom is an office worker who is out for lunch and trying to find a table. He contemplates how big the cafeteria is and is overheard by Helen, a librarian, who has spread her lunch, a book and other belongings over an entire table for two. She is a larger sized woman, what is referred to in Internet shorthand as a BBW. She accuses him of referring to her size, throwing him onto the back foot into a confused attempt to explain that he was talking to himself aloud about the size of the venue. She laughs and explains that she was just joking, and clears half the table for him. They talk as they eat, her devouring several slices of pizza, a can of cola, and chocolate bars, and him picking at a salad. They hit it off, and she gives him her telephone number. They begin seeing each other regularly.

Back in his office we meet his workmates, Carter and Jeannie. Carter is the office gossip and a stirrer, who seems to avoid actually doing any work by wandering about the building visiting other employees, particularly Tom. He has seen a change in Tom and has guessed that he is seeing somebody new. It transpires that Tom is a serial short term dater, quickly tiring of the women with whom he becomes involved. It seems that the tall, slim, beautiful, blonde haired Jeannie was the most recent of his dalliances, and she still thinks that they are in a relationship that, at 28 years of age, she is desperately believing will lead to marriage, before she is left on the shelf. We learn that Jeannie is physically typical of the many women who have briefly had a relationship with Tom.

When Carter and Jeannie discover who Tom is dating they react strongly to his latest romance. Carter desperately tries to make him see sense and drop Helen, suggesting that he should stick to “his own kind”. Jeannie is disgusted and furious that, not only has she been dumped, again, but for somebody that she sees as unbelievably inferior.

Helen falls heavily for Tom and, when they are alone, he admits that he is in love with her, but he still keeps her well away from his workmates. He insists that he is not ashamed of her, or of being seen with her but, when the office’s day out at the beach arrives, he insists that they sit well away from everybody else. He is now caught between his terminal shallowness and his love for Helen, and the time has come to make a decision.

There is little or nothing to like in Tom, Carter, or Jeannie, three self obsessed, shallow, weak little people who are far more worried about what other people think than in what is right and wrong. Helen, on the other hand, is at the opposite end of the scale; self aware, self confident, and perfectly happy with herself just the way that she is. Helen begins to have an influence on Tom and it looks, for a while, as though he is finally growing up and seeing what he, and the other two, are really like.

Tom is played by Elliot Howard who conveys all the confusion and indecision that Tom goes through. When he is with Helen, Howard presents us with a very different person to the one that he portrays when he is in the office. He does a great job of handling this Jekyll and Hyde dichotomy in a very convincing performance. He also displays Tom’s development as the play progresses.

Daniel McKinnon plays Carter, a man whose life revolves around sticking his nose into everybody else’s life, because that is easier than having a life of his own. He is bigoted, inconsiderate and obnoxious. McKinnon takes this foul creature and presents him in such a way that one cringes at his behaviour, and laughs at him at the same time. He finds a nice balance in his portrayal.

Renee Gentle plays Jeannie, concerned only with herself and bitter at being mistreated by men. That, of course, is precisely the way in which Tom and Carter treat their women. Jeannie does nothing to change either herself or the situation, and so continually repeats the cycle of playing the victim. Gentle makes her Jeannie selfish and self-centred, seeing Tom’s romance with Helen only in terms of how it affects her and what people might say about her being dumped for an overweight woman. Gentle perfectly captures the essence of so many of the young women of the ‘me’ generation.

Julia Mayer gives us a thoroughly charming and disarming Helen. Mayer’s Helen sparkles, has an infectious giggle, and her performance makes it is easy to see how Tom gets drawn into that first conversation. It is equally easy to believe that he is attracted to her by the end of lunch, as it is probably the first time that he has actually taken the time to talk to a woman and get to know her. For the first time in his life Tom has fallen for a woman for her personality. Mayer and Howard build a great rapport for their characters during their first encounter that makes what follows logical.

The play does not go very deeply into the issues behind all of this, it merely points some of them out in passing. It is the interaction between, and the opinions of the four characters that LaBute focuses upon. The dialogue is snappy, the characters are superbly played and the whole thing is well polished. Make a point of seeing this one while you can.

Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Arts Editor, Glam Adelaide.

Bakehouse web site

Venue: Bakehouse Theatre, 255 Angas Street, Adelaide
Season: 8pm to 28th July 2012
Duration: 1hr 10mins
Tickets: $15 to $25
Bookings: here or at the door (subject to availability)

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