If John Lennon were alive, I think he’d like to buy Neil LaBute and David Mamet and David Rabe a Coke. And teach them harmony. Imagine!
But from Euripides to Kafka to Mamet, we’ve always championed writers who reach into the guts of human existence and throw up the digestive muck for our entertainment and enlightenment.
Only the modern equivalents no longer carry such evident purpose. No call to bow down before gods, overthrow governments or make personal change. No, these guys do it just for sport. And to make you feel bad about the human race.
But boy, can they write.
LaBute’s “This Is How It Goes” is one well-written, black-and-bile comedy that confirms, once and surely not for all, that people vacuum with their mouths.
“This Is How It Goes” is a seductive trip down the rabbit colon, thanks to a comically unreliable narrator who, like lots of scumbags you meet, is unnervingly adept at making a good first impression. Only this guy’s not only working Belinda, the object of his unrequited college affection 12 years before, but also an audience that falls for him just as completely and inevitably.
Paragon Theatre is now performing this little piece of nasty, and never has it been easier to distinguish an appreciation for performance from disdain for subject matter. Director Warren Sherrill has elicited career-defining performances from Scott McLean, Tyee Tilghman and Emily Paton Davies, who, at the end of an elliptical nearly 2 1/2 hours (unconscionably, without an intermission), leave you in need of a shower.
(The off-putting length was a bit boggling, as the 2005 premiere starring Ben Stiller took just 90 minutes. So I asked Sherrill, who says the only version of the play available for performance is the one published just before the aforementioned off-Broadway staging, during which the cast and crew whittled the script for that production down to 90 minutes).
The title comes from an Aimee Mann song. It’s ostensibly about contemporary racism, but that’s just LaBute’s sledgehammer of choice. The arm wielding it is a play that toys with a larger truism: All storytelling is, to varying degrees, lying. No narrator (or writer) can be fully trusted to tell us the truth because once any story exists in the past, its retelling is subject to interpretation, bias, exploitation and machination. Just come to any Moore family barbecue and you’ll see what I mean.
Every storyteller — from cave men scratching walls, to the authors of the Bible, to the drunk at the bar — has an “agenda” to protect how he comes across in the telling.
Here, our storyteller tells us how it goes, but from his vantage point, and to his full advantage. Oh, he’s funny, even adorable, when he pops out of live action to toss in charming asides to the audience. But what’s funny to you might be fighting words to me.
Over time, his casual remarks devolve into overt racist outbursts engineered by the playwright to make us feel guilty for ever having liked him.
It’s masterful audience manipulation, and that’s what theater is supposed to do. But you’re not supposed to feel led by the nose ring. LaBute may as well have written it in neon: “I’m (bleeping) with you (bleepers)!”
And what better way to (bleep) than to wield the hypersensitive weapon of racism? Here our white narrator (McLean), who presents slides to us like we’re neighbors hearing about his vacation, introduces Belinda (Davies). She’s the college crush he’s randomly run into at the mall. Their chemistry is undeniable. But she’s married to the arrogant, angry black college track star who, as presented to us, sports a racial chip as tall as his pole vault.
The trio plays out key scenes in this burgeoning, interracial love triangle, but we see only what the narrator wants us to see. Always evasive about his own past and motives, he suggests Cody (Tilghman) beats the white wife he married only as a trophy to give him a business entree in this mostly white suburban community. We will draw conclusions accordingly. For we are mere tools.
Because, as the narrator admits, he may just be messing with us. And he is.
LaBute dares us to examine first our own personal, unfiltered emotional response to the tale as presented; then again after realizing it has been, at the very least, biased. What does that tell us about the latent or overt racism that exists in all of us?
Then again, LaBute might just be messing with us. And he is.
No matter how you feel about being so casually toyed with, LaBute, and this excellent cast, will hit your nerve center. For better or worse, that’s what theater is supposed to do.
But you probably shouldn’t trust me on any of this.
John Moore: 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com
“This is How it Goes” *** (out of four stars)
Black and bile comedy Presented by Paragon Theatre at the Crossroads Theater, 2590 Washington St. Written by Neil LaBute. Directed by Warren Sherrill. Starring Scott McLean, Tyee Tilghman and Emily Paton Davies. 2 hours, 25 minutes with no intermission. Through Aug. 16. 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays. $17-$19. 303-300-2210 or
This week’s openings
“High School Musical” Irresistible national touring production about the jock and the bookworm who find love, and land the leads in the big school show. Through Sunday. Ellie Caulkins Opera House, Denver Performing Arts Complex, 303-893-4100 or the
“Leadville or Bust” Reyna Von Vett’s burlesque operetta offers authentic, turn-of-the-century dance-hall songs. Tuesdays and Wednesdays only through Aug. 13. Crossroads Theatre, 2590 Washington St., 720-394-6198 or
“Crimes of the Heart” A family crisis reunites three quirky sisters at their home in Mississippi. Through Aug. 23. Theatre Aspen, 400 Rio Grande Place, 970-925-9313 or
“Life Is a Dream” Calderon de la Barca’s masterpiece about a man who has lived his entire life imprisoned in a cave, only to awake one day to find he is a prince in a palace. Directed by Jamie Horton. Through Aug. 23. Creede Repertory Theatre, 124 N. Main St., 866-658-2540 or
“Politix” Janet DeRuvo tackles what’s really happening in politics and sets it to music. Through Aug. 23. Victorian Playhouse, 4201 Hooker St., 303-433-4343 or
“Incorruptible” Michael Hollinger’s dark comedy about the Dark Ages, when clerics sold off peasant bones as those of saints. Through Aug. 3. Cabrini Little Theatre, St. Frances Cabrini Church, 6673 W. Chatfield Ave., Littleton, 303-979-7688
Complete theater listings
Go to our complete list of every currently running production in Colorado, including summaries, run dates, addresses, phones and links to every company’s home page.
This week’s podcast
Running Lines with . . . .
This week, Denver Post theater critic John Moore chats with the the Fort Collins native who’s home through Sunday, July 27, playing Ryan in the national touring production of “High School Musical.” Recorded July 24, 2008. Run time: 13 minutes. To access the podcast, click on the link above and the podcast will begin, with no downloading necessary.
