Neil Labute's fascination/understanding of what compels ordinary citizens into acts of pure evil was certainly explored in his first two films, In The Company of Men and Your Friends & Neighbors. Though both incredibly good, these movies ultimately suffered from Labute's theatre background, the fact that he staged the actors as if they were on a stage. In Bash: Latterday Plays, his instincts are appropriate, because it is a stage play: one is not distracted by bland blocking, allowing for full participation in a quietly horrifying hour and a half. The tales told here are rife with concepts that befit Labute's dramatic tastes -- pedophilia, hate crimes, the killing of one's child -- but never before has he, as a writer, accounted for more jaw-dropping plot twists. Like a triptych of O. Henry stories adapted by Todd Solondz, Bash demands that you like (or at the very least, pity) each of its characters, and it promises that they will each betray you.
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Eight Two31 July 2001Bash is the sort of thing that causes me to lose all analytical abilities. It's so good that my prose breaks down into nothing but gushing. The acting by Calista Flockhart, Paul Rudd, and Ron Eldard gives the stories honest-to-goodness LIFE and it stays with you for days. Neil LaBute masters the form of the one-act, three times over. "Latterday Plays" is a brutally tragic masterpiece, LaBute's magnum opus, and one of the greatest plays I've ever seen.