THE STORY: How far would you go for love? For art? What concessions would you make? What price would you be willing to pay? A modern day retelling 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 dangerous, seductive territory, 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.

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"[LaBute] continues to probe the fascinating dark side of individualism, whose ultimate evil is an inability to imagine the suffering of others....   LaBute's great gift is to live in and to chronicle that murky area of not knowing, which mankind spends much of its waking life denying. Where does truth end and fiction begin? Is the fiction more valuable than the truth? Do the results justify the means?"   —The New Yorker  

 

"What is art? What are you permitted to do in its name?...   These questions are thrown up by a piece whose intricate layers of treachery are worthy of David Mamet..."  —The Independent  

 

"LaBute is a smart, ambitious writer who, at his best, dares to explore the ambivalence hiding under the weave of our social fabric. He always has a serious intellectual project in mind, and here he aims at no less than the subjectivity of love and the definition of art itself.   THE SHAPE OF THINGS is compulsively watchable."  —Newsday

 

"LaBute is the most gifted, intelligent and wittily moral American playwright since Wallace Shawn; that is high praise, believe me.   And this play marks his theatrical maturity. It's a must see."  —Daily Mail