Fat Pig

24 October 2013 | 10:52 am | Ben Meyer

The play’s treatment of “fatness” is constantly superficial and it is clear that on this issue LaBute has no idea what he's talking about.

Neil LaBute's Fat Pig is told completely from protagonist Tom's (Lyall Brooks) perspective, a loveable idiot. He meets Helen (Lulu McClatchy), whose only role in the piece is to be fat and rip through killer one-liners. Jeannie (Cassandra Magrath) is Tom's crazy ex who thinks she owns him and Carter (Patrick Harvey) is Tom's arsehole best friend. What follows is the increasingly less endearing Tom being thoroughly incapable of standing up to “societal prejudices” about fat people. While granted this is meant to be the point of the play, never at any point do you believe that Tom actually really loves Helen because their relationship doesn't progress past a multitude of “I really like you” and self-conscious fat jokes. Further, the entire work is built around the rather offensive premise that Tom is doing “a good thing” by going out with a fat person. Despite the faults in the writing, each actor does well in their roles, with Harvey and Magrath managing to develop their kiddy pool-deep characters to a point where they become interesting. Further, Brooks and McClatchy's dialogue and interactions are entertaining at times, especially in the opening scene. Nevertheless, the play's treatment of “fatness” is constantly superficial and it is clear that on this issue LaBute has no idea what he's talking about.