Neil LaBute

[Alex Kulak2]

Posted: 10/2/19 at 11:40pm

Has it ever been revealed why MCC terminated their relationship with Neil LaBute? It was smack in the middle of the Me Too Movement, but I've never heard anything about anyone making allegations against him.

There's a lot of people who really hate his writing. I'm mixed personally - I find his characters unnecessarily mean-spirited, and his women characters are not given a fair treatment dramaturgically speaking, but he does have some very interesting ideas in his plays, from the few I've read, and I think he does have an ear for a very specific kind of working-class dialogue. Could it have been that in a time that is about listening to what women have to say about how they've been mistreated, MCC didn't want to associate with an author who has written almost exclusively about problematic people, that don't necessarily apologize for being problematic?

[LightsOut90]

Posted: 10/3/19 at 12:14am

also the Geffen Playhouse did as well

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 10/3/19 at 12:49am

No idea but I don’t miss his work. Never enjoyed it. What was initially provocative became tedious. Women as shrews, men as savages or buffoons. That solo Judith Light show was one of the worse things I’ve ever seen.

[Pashacar]

Posted: 10/3/19 at 2:31pm

Mostly agree on not missing it, although reasons to be pretty was a diamond in the rough for me. I found that it had some of his more appealing signature elements, but with more maturity, and I remember it very fondly. I just saw Linda Vista and thought that it actually felt kind of like a worse version of a similar arc.

I wouldn't mind seeing a production of it at some point in the future, but that seems pretty unlikely now.

[sinister teashop]

Posted: 10/4/19 at 12:15pm

MCC's dismissal of LaBute was curious. The theater had a very long relationship with the writer.

Updated On: 10/4/19 at 12:15 PM

[Kad]

Posted: 10/4/19 at 12:30pm

He had three one-acts done in January at the dingy Davenport Theatre and nobody really cared. Very much an abrupt change of fortune for him in the theatre community. 

[jbird5]

Posted: 10/4/19 at 7:10pm

He also had his usual one act Summer Short at 59e59. I saw a post where he said the Gerffen show was cancelled because Chrissy Metz pulled out. I think MCC dropped him because they have become super woke - not for the better it seems.

[Alex Kulak2]

Posted: 10/5/19 at 10:41pm

jbird5 said: "He also had his usual one act Summer Short at 59e59. I saw a post where he said the Gerffen show was cancelled because Chrissy Metz pulled out. I think MCC dropped him because they have become super woke - not for the better it seems."

I feel like once a theatre produces a show about a relationship between a thin man and a plus-sized woman called Fat Pig, they waive their preference to ever be known as "woke"

[Pashacar]

Posted: 10/6/19 at 4:11pm

Alex Kulak2 said: "I feel like once a theatre produces a show about a relationship between a thin man and a plus-sized woman calledFat Pig, they waive their preference to ever be known as "woke"

Not sure that title was 100% sincere....

[SouthernCakes]

Posted: 10/6/19 at 6:03pm

Yeah I actually really love “Fat Pig.”

I’d love to see a LaBute/Yazbeck musical.

[Kad]

Posted: 10/6/19 at 7:12pm

jbird5 said: "He also had his usual one act Summer Short at 59e59. I saw a post where he said the Gerffen show was cancelled because Chrissy Metz pulled out. I think MCC dropped him because they have become super woke - not for the better it seems."

Theatre companies don't abruptly and without any warning dissolve a twenty-year relationship with a writer because they're trying to be woke.

[HogansHero]

Posted: 10/6/19 at 8:36pm

Let's not beat around the bush.

Obviously, there was an allegation. 

Obviously, for whatever reason, that allegation never evolved into a provable fact.

Obviously, raising the issue with someone with whom one has a twenty-year relationship can cause irreparable harm in that relationship. 

Obviously, "nevermind" is not likely to be a restorative gesture, assuming it was warranted. 

Life goes on. This is not Harnick and Bock.

[Kad]

Posted: 10/7/19 at 10:17am

I wouldn't necessary say all of those are obvious. There very easily could have been an NDA in play. 

[kingfan011]

Posted: 10/7/19 at 10:25am

Personally for me never topped In The Company of Men which remains a brilliant and slightly misunderstood film. Everything has been varying qualities of versions of that.

[sinister teashop]

Posted: 10/7/19 at 8:43pm

For nearly every year for a decade, a Neil LaBute play was one of MCC's three main offerings. If it ever had much of an identity beyond the reach of its casting network, MCC was a Neil LaBute theater.