Fat Pig By Neal LaBute in NY

[bwaybaby13]

Posted: 1/18/05 at 6:44pm

Read the play and adored it! I can't wait to see it but I'm just wondering if there's anyone who's seen it and what your take on its new

It's at the Lucille Lortel Theatre (121 Christopher Street) till Feb 5.

Updated On: 1/18/05 at 06:44 PM

[Rubytramp]

Posted: 1/19/05 at 7:51am

I saw it last night. Pretty fantastic. LaBute sure knows how to write a**holes. I was sobbing by the end. I thought the acting was v.v. good, Andrew McCarthy was particularly good as the worst of the worst. His speeches were right on. Ashlie Atkinson is a wonder - she has two scenes where she is silent for a long amount of time - very difficult stuff, but she does it very well. Jessica Capshaw was a bit bland for a while, but really hit her big speech and Steven Pasquale also needed to hit the ground running but quickly caught up to Ashlie's speed.

The thing with LaBute is different people will take different things from his work, I'm a bit overweight at this time in my life and come from obese parents, so the weight issue hit home for me, for others I'd imagine it's the relationship issue that hits closer to home. (That aspect also hit hard for me as I’m in a good relationship now but still find myself feeling insecure about my weight – even after two years of being with my guy.) I tried to gauge the audience’s reaction afterwards and this seemed to be the case. It's hard looking at yourself through LaBute's eyes - he's pretty brutal. It was quite an emotional roller coaster.

I highly recommend this show - Ashlie deserves big things - she's extremely talented.

We tried to wait for her after the show (the friend I went with wrote her a letter when the show first opened and really wanted to meet her) but after waiting about 20 minutes in sub-zero temps even our limit was met. And my toes were about to fall off. We did see Andrew McCarthy come out though and he took the time to sign a few autographs and take a few pictures - seems like a nice guy. I didn't approach him - didn't want to get all John Hughes fangirl on him!