Review: The Shape of Things at The Pottery Lane Performance Space

Review by Scott Whitmont

Neil LaBute’s one-act black comedy of love and manipulation was last mounted professionally by the Sydney Theatre Company in 2005 with great success. Now, in the hands of Director Kathryn Thomas and the Lane Cove Theatre Company, it returns to the Sydney stage just as impressively.

With dialogue which is snappy, often funny and sometimes disturbing, it explores multi-layered themes of self-image, youthful friendship, trust, honesty, jealousy and infidelity.

Set in an American college town in 2001, the opening scene has Adam (Victor Xu) - a hesitant and nerdy English lit major - working at his part-time museum job when he meets Evelyn (Bianca Lombardo) as she prepares to deface a sculpture on display. Working on her fine arts thesis, Evelyn is supremely confidant, sassy and flirtatious. An ambitious schemer, she decides to make Adam her project…and so begins a relationship that is ultimately more characterised by her manipulation than romance.

Adam is charmed and totally taken in by her confidence and seeming worldliness. Under her tutelage, his assuredness builds, and he changes himself to fit her vision of what he could be. He begins to exercise and lose weight and even ditches his signature puffer jacket for a designer coat not his normal style. Xu plays Adam with a vulnerability and innocence which endears his character to the audience. Adam has no idea how subtly he is being manipulated – even to the point of falling out with his best friends, the recently engaged Phillip (Nash Williams) and Jenny (Isabel Toohey).

Phillip, Adam’s former roommate, is outspoken and often impudent, invariably drinking to excess and running off at the mouth. He seems mismatched with Jenny, a quieter and sensitive fellow student. She’s intimidated by Evelyn’s forcefulness and often dogmatic pronouncements.

As the play progresses towards its unexpected shock ending, its dark humour and the vulnerability of the four characters are revealed.  Clearly, Kathyrn Thomas is masterfully in control of her material and has expertly guided her talented cast through the many subtleties of their characters. Each of them adeptly presents their dramatis personae with nuance and insight.

The stand-out performance comes in the play’s penultimate scene - an extensive monologue from Evelyn, revealing the scope of her Machiavellian deceit. In the hands of Lombardo, her enigmatic character’s cruel toxicity is palpable, and clearly demonstrates her acting prowess.

Performed in the Lane Cove Theatre Company’s snazzy new home at The Pottery Lane Performance Space, the set is sparce but effective, with cast members bringing props on and off stage themselves, transforming the scenes convincingly between the campus, galleries, bedrooms and living rooms.

Given the masterful script and complexity of psychological issues, it is small wonder that The Shape of Things is on the HSC drama syllabus. In the capable hand of the LCTC, audience members are assured to be thinking about it long after they leave the theatre. 

Image Supplied