The Ugly One: An Appealing Play but Unattractive Production
By: Irene Blainey , a student in Yana Meerzon’s theatre criticism class.
Imagine a world so ashamed of imperfection, craving the pristine, yet ugly in nature. This is the captivating and eye-opening world presented in Marius von Mayenburg’s play The Ugly One. However, the plays transfer to the stage at The Gladstone was anything but captivating. The production, directed by Peter Haworth, found itself incoherent, theatrically drained and in need of plastic surgery.The play, which was translated from German, follows Lette (David Whiteley), a businessman who is suddenly awoken to the fact that he is ugly. With the loss of new job opportunities and a confrontation with his wife (Julie Le Gal), he seeks a solution to his appearance.
Lette’s situation leads him to Scheffler (Sasha Domonique), a plastic surgeon who offers a transformation. After accepting the offer Lette emerges from the surgery with a seemingly renewed appearance, which invites new opportunities and complications. As others around him undergo the same surgery, Lette is tossed into a society full of people just like him, all faced with a lack of individuality and distinction. The play escalates to a breaking point where Lette must face his decision or abandon his identity.
Despite the promising concept of the play, the production at The Gladstone failed to follow through on several aspects making for a disjointed and perplexing 70 minutes. The show seemed to strive for a minimalistic approach to the work, with its lack of props and simplistic set, consisting of only one concrete piece, a long bench placed center stage. Lighting was used in an attempt to make distinctions between the different locations on stage but failed in consistency and appeared insignificant.
Miming was included as a supposed emphasis on the minimalism, however the accuracy of movements, which included an extended sequence of peeling fruit, were unprecise and became less coherent throughout the production. This consequently distracted from other elements of the show including the dialogue spoken during these sequences. Unfortunately the production failed in maintaining the consistency of this façade, by the seemingly random inclusion of two props, gauze and a mirror, disconnecting the story from its world. This disjointed world was accompanied by characters who appeared out of place and unenthused. Particularly that of David Whiteley’s Lette, who maintained the same drowned out monotone voice throughout the production and dropped jokes that never seemed to land.
The energetic and comedic performances by the rest of the cast was a redeeming quality for the production providing hints of life to a dying show. Distinctions between their multiple characters were minimally unclear, with minor inconsistency in accents and posture. The exception to this is Karlmann played by Andrew Hosale, who was engaging and nicely transitioned between his two characters creating precise distinctions.
Several production qualities are questionable when examining them in reference to the script. With the play originally being more farcical in nature, the transfer to stage comes off even more out of place. The inclusion of seemingly pointless verbal soundscapes and incoherent miming sequences did not aid the play in engaging the audience, and instead detracted from the experience. Unfortunately, this promising play was met with some unappealing plastic surgery and the result is certainly an ugly one.
The Ugly One played at The Gladstone from September 26- October 5