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Neil LaBute’s writing has the uncanny knack of creeping up on you before thwacking you right between the eyes. That’s certainly the case with the American playwright and filmmaker’s 1999 trilogy of short plays, ‘Bash’. You don’t actually come out of the show bruised, but in each piece the story unfolds slowly, without signposting, and before you know it, you’re in an exceptionally dark place.
The Latterday Saints references have been toned down in the version of the text used by Jonathan O’Boyle’s production, but the characters are still primarily Mormons, most of whom commit terrible crimes.
In ‘Iphigenia in Orem’ a Mormon man coming to terms with the death of his baby talks out to us in a confessional from a Las Vegas hotel room. ‘A Gaggle of Saints’ has a young, sheltered Mormon couple relaying a big night out, with his taking a distinctly darker turn than hers. The third is ‘Medea Redux’, a version of Euripides’s ancient tragedy, in which a young woman exacts terrible revenge after being abused by her high school teacher.
LaBute’s prose is imbued with tension and as sharp as a pinprick. In each play, the characters relay their stories to the audience, bit by bit revealing more, until we realise everything we assumed about them is wrong. LaBute questions the idea of blind faith and innate love, and he forces us to see humanity’s capacity to hate fellow human beings. Although the plays reference Mormonism, their message emerges as a warning against the blinkered hypocrisy of religion as a whole and of society itself.
O’Boyle’s production channels LaBute’s sense of impending doom exceptionally well and features excellent performances from four young actors. Philip Scott-Wallace is particularly strong as the motormouthed Young Man in ‘Iphigenia’ while the others all embody these uncomfortable personas with a disarming fluidity. A magnificently unsettling night, and one that is hard to forget.