Clever perspective and comic twists make this play go
By MARTY CLEAR
Published February 5, 2007
TAMPA - In Bash, his most widely known play, Neil Labute offered us a collection of normal, likable people who gradually confess to monstrous behavior.
Audiences who know that play might get an extra little kick out of This Is How It Goes, Labute's 2005 work, which is having its Southeastern premiere at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center.
This Is How It Goes is a very fresh and often very funny twist on a romantic comedy. An affable, somewhat bumbling writer (Ryan McCarthy, in a charming performance) recounts his tentative attempt to capture the heart of his unrequited love from years earlier (Heather Scheffel, a relative newcomer to this area who's quite engaging). They haven't seen each other since high school. She was dating the school's star athlete, and has since married him.
McCarthy's unnamed character speaks directly to the audience throughout the play and makes it clear that the version of events we're seeing is a mixture of fact, conjecture and his attempt to twist the story and his memory to his advantage.
Complications arise when McCarthy rents a garage apartment from Scheffel and her husband (David Dolphy). The relationship between McCarthy and Scheffel seems to grow slowly, even under the suspicious eye of her husband, and high school animosities between McCarthy and Dolphy resurface.
It's all loads of fun until McCarthy lets a couple of racial epithets slip. (The husband is black; the other characters are white.) As it turns out, both male characters may have very dark sides. One may be a racist; the other may be violent.
Because of the neat way Labute has constructed the play - we see most everything through McCarthy's eyes, and even he's not sure what is going on - the playwright can toy with our perceptions and expectations.
The Jobsite Theater production is wonderfully plain. Director Ami Sallee Corley moves her characters around a setless stage that enhances the feeling of intimacy; it's good old-fashioned black-box theater. The characters are rich and interesting, and the actors make the most of them. (Dolphy's undercurrent of menace is a fine counterpoint to the overall lightness of the other two actors.) The writing is economical and clever, and though the resolution isn't entirely satisfying, the play and the production end up being quite invigorating.
Review
'This Is How It Goes'
The play runs through Sunday at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center's Shimberg Playhouse, 1010 NW MacInnes Place, Tampa. 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday. $19.50 and $24.50, plus service charge. (813) 229-7827; www.tbpac.org.