'reasons to be pretty': A fiery take on how humans get along

In the first seconds of "reasons to be pretty," the audience is confronted with an emotional, fiery, invective-laden fight surpassing anything I've seen on reality TV. One drunken comment sets off a dramatic sequence that causes serious turmoil with a constant hint of absurdity.

This first production of the Department of Theatre and Dance's 2013-2014 season is a meditation on the modern world's fixation with appearance. The emotionally charged play was written by Neil LaBute, an award-winning playwright and filmmaker known for his intense, rhythmic and realistic dialogue. Under the direction of professor Walter Schoen, "reasons to be pretty" is a compelling, but often humorous look at how we get along.

Steph, a long-suffering girlfriend, uses pretty much every unprintable curse word I know in telling her dense boyfriend Greg that she's reached her limit. Senior Emily Brewster uses the f-word 45 times in the course of playing Steph along with a comical variety of other profanities, she said.

Greg, played with a persistent sense of bewilderment by junior Kevin Hargrave, is the protagonist of this story, and through his eyes we see the ups and downs of relationships and friendships. He is shown reading and enjoying a variety of classic authors throughout the play (Poe, Hawthorne, Swift), but his lack of ambition has left him stuck in a dead-end job packing boxes at a warehouse.

For companionship, Greg has his old school-buddy and coworker Kent, played to the heights of douchiness by junior Brennen Lutz. Imagine a cross between an overly competitive athlete and the bully from middle school grown up, and you have a pretty good picture of whom Greg has to deal with. Lutz's character neatly fills the role of antagonist in "reasons to be pretty," and it's his poor judgment and overconfidence that drive much of the drama. Not only did he prompt Greg into saying his wife's face is merely "regular," but when Kent starts cheating on his wife, Carly, sympathetically acted by senior Taryn Smith, Greg finds himself torn between loyalty to his friend, and his own sense of morality.

Meanwhile, Greg and Steph continue to run into each other, with each encounter showing us how far or how little the two have moved past the vitriol. Greg never seems to understand what he's done to make his ex so upset, leading Steph to very publicly read out a list of everything she hated about him in the middle of a mall. The emotional, and even sexual, tension that Hargrave and Brewster bring to their four dialogues are the highlights of this two-hour play, and it's hard not to feel caught in their story.

Although the story seems weighty, the play's conversations often weave from heavy to wacky and back again within each scene. One minute Greg is explaining his breakup to Kent over lunch in the break room, and the next minute he is vigorously defending to Kent his choice to eat a power bar right after his lunch. It's the seriousness that the characters have in these absurd debates that really made me laugh.

Reflecting the strife in the story, each scene is punctuated by discomforting industrial music. I found myself getting to be a little annoyed by the end of the play, but overall I liked the sound and lighting design done by professor Maja White. Heather Hogg, assistant director of costume, does a fine job keeping the costumes interesting, especially seeing as three of the characters are in work uniforms for most of the play, and professor Reed West designed a simple, but versatile set.

I really enjoyed being able to see "reasons to be pretty" in one of its final rehearsals, and I recommend it to anybody looking for a relatable drama that blends serious and light in a way few other stories can.

"reasons to be pretty" runs Oct. 3-5 at 7:30 p.m., and Oct. 6 at 2 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at the Modlin Center for the Arts box office, or online at modlin.richmond.edu.