Fat Pig

Reviewed by Neal Weaver

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In the 1974 Broadway comedy My Fat Friend, Lynn Redgrave played a zaftig young woman thrilled that a man has shown an interest in her. When he’s called away for a time, she resolves, with the help her friends, to lose weight, and heighten his interest in her by becoming thin and svelte by the time he returns. But the plan backfires: He doesn’t like skinny women.

In Neil LaBute’s Fat Pig, we encounter the opposite problem. The affair comes to grief because the woman doesn’t change.

Tom (Jonathan Bray) is a rising star in the business world. One day at lunch he encounters a “full-bodied” young woman, Helen (Deidra Edwards), in a restaurant. When he first encounters her, she’s chowing down on pizza and chocolate pudding. He’s disconcerted by her size, but she’s clever, good-natured, and possesses a terrific self-deprecating wit. He’s attracted, almost despite himself, and soon they’re dating. But we — and she — gradually realize that he’s ashamed to be seen with her. He tries to conceal their involvement from his colleagues at work. She tries to go along for a while, because she doesn’t want to jeopardize a good thing, and perhaps because she hopes she can help him acquire some intestinal fortitude.

Tom’s colleagues at work don’t help. His uninhibited, engagingly obnoxious friend Carter (Nick Stabile) is an insufferable butinsky who likes picking at other people’s scabs. He’s a cynical proponent of the way of the world, who can’t understand Tom’s attraction to a woman he regards as a fat pig. And what he doesn’t understand, he condemns. (And perhaps he’s a bit jealous of any serious relationship that differs from his own short-lived dalliances.)

Jeannie (Kirsten Kollender), Tom’s sometime girlfriend is even more hostile: She can’t understand how she could lose out to a woman she considers unattractive. When Carter steals a photo of Helen, posts it on the Internet and emails it to everyone in the office, Tom’s love seriously wavers.

Act 1 is funny, clever, appealing, and packs a high entertainment content. Act 2 turns darker, revealing an inexorable emotional logic. It raises many issues about our critical, body-image conscious world, but it also leaves a lot of questions unanswered. It’s clear that Tom loves Helen, but is it because he’s programed to be attracted to plus-sized women, or is it because she initially seems undemanding? Is he so “other-directed” that he can’t resist the opinions of those around him? Or is he simply commitment shy, and unable to sustain any relationship? 

In any event, LaBute has written a challenging, stinging indictment of life (and love) in a judgemental age. If the play was initially controversial, it’s because we didn’t want to look at LaBute’s hard truths and preferred to kill the messenger.

Director Alexis Jacknow has cast the piece beautifully and shaped it with a sure hand, particularly in the comedy of Act 1. Bray makes Tom an attractive figure, ‘till he reveals that he’s essentially a wimp. Edwards nimbly captures Helen’s wit, warmth, and ultimate stoicism. Stabile charms us despite his pushy mean-spiritedness, and Kollender finds the humor even in being rejected.

Hudson Mainstage Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles. Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.; through June 1. (323) 960-7788, www.plays411.com/fatpig (Neal Weaver)