Neil LaBute

I'm a big fan. Neil LaBute really goes where no other playwright has gone before. The Shape of Things is particularly good.

I read his latest, The Break of Noon recently. I really liked it. I wondered about a few things, though. In his introduction, LaBute declares that he is a "better and braver artist" than he is a person. He's certainly a great and brave artist. But there's one point in the play where I suspect he chickened out a bit. Either that, or he and I just see things differently, which is totally fine.

After the protagonist, John's, revelation that he survived a deadly office shooting in order to spread the word of God to one and all, his struggle consists of battling a string of people who either don't believe him, or resent him for it. One such is the Host: a, well, host of a television talk-show who seems bent on getting all up in John's grill about his zeal. Having had enough, John explodes: " . . . I don't even know what I'm saying now, but God spoke to me, he chose right then to take charge of my life and so be it! You think that's crazy . . . How 'bout Noah? And Moses? Or Adam and goddamn Eve? Huh? Read the Koran or the Bible or any of it. All of this is crazy! Every last guy in the belly of a whale's insane. Okay? Totally bonkers . . . but it's also true."

So, I think the unbrave part about his artistry here is this: To a Christian believer (and in this play, the references lead me to believe that John is a new convert), the Bible is an exclusive text. The Koran isn't bad or anything, it's just someone else's book, and certainly someone else's truth. Now, maybe, John is early in the process, or maybe Neil LaBute purposely wanted John to be open-minded about God, so that his work would not be exclusive. Maybe he didn't mean for it to matter whose God it is that's represented in this play. I'll concede to that.

For the most part though, I think he just didn't want to offend anyone.