The Shape of Things

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.
Neil LaBute is the critically acclaimed writer-director of numerous works for the stage and screen, including "In the Company of Men," "Your Friends & Neighbors," and "The Mercy Seat."
How far would you go for love? For art? What concessions would you make? What price would you be willing to pay? Such are the painful questions explored by Neil LaBute in his play and film "The Shape of Things--"a modern-day telling of the fall of man.
After a chance meeting in a museum, Evelyn, a sexy, aggressive artist, and Adam, a shy, insecure student, become embroiled in an intense affair. Before long, it veers into the kind if dangerous, seductive territory that LaBute does best, as Adam, under Evelyn's steady influence, goes to unimaginable lengths to improve his appearance and character. Only in the final and shocking exhibition, which challenges our most deeply entrenched ideas about art and love, does Evelyn reveal her true intentions.
This volume contains the original stage script for the play, which was also the basis for the film.
"LaBute is the first dramatist since David Mamet and Sam Shepard--since Edward Albee, actually--to mix sympathy and savagery, pathos and power . . . "The Shape of Things" . . . continues his fascination with the power games men and women play."--Donald Lyons, "New York Post"
"LaBute . . . continues to probe the fascinating dark side of individualism . . . His] 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"
""Shape" . . . is LaBute's thesis on extreme feminine wiles, as well as a disquisition on how far an artist . . . can go in the name of art . . . Like a chiropractor of the soul, LaBute is looking for realignment, listening for a crack."--John Istel, "Elle"