Fat Pig
Fat Pig
By Neil LeBute
Directed by Rowan Bousaid
Frat Pack Productions at Art’s Sake Theatre
Winter Park, FL</strong>
When choosing a mate, your tastes may change with age. A young man might prefer an attractive blonde with nice abs, but an older man may settle for a woman who just doesn’t snore too much. Tonight we have the former, charming Tom (Daryn Kahn) is dating cute Jeannie (Danielle Alagna) down in accounting. But at lunch one day he meets overweight librarian Hellen (Stephanie Miller) and they hit it off. Tom might even work both sides of the fence if not for his best friend and the Iago, Carter (Robert Walker – Branchaud). Carter delights in gossip, relishes causing pain, and has the biggest mouth in sales. Inter-office dating is always dangerous, and with Carter on patrol it’s not even intermission when Jeannie and Tom have it out. Well, there’s always Hellen, despite her nice smile she’s lonely and desperate and quickly falls in love with Tom only to discover Tom’s fatal flaw – he’s shallow enough to care what Carter thinks. Too bad, Hellen, but rest assured all men ARE jerks.
It’s a fast-paced knife juggling act, and most everyone gets stabbed a bit. Tom is cute and arrogant enough to get away with romantic murder; you sense no woman is safe around him. While Jeannie looks good in a bikini, she also doesn’t take any guff and is able to play the accounting card with skill and punch hole in Tom’s story and his manhood. As they spar with flamethrowers, Carter gleefully watches and takes YouTube video for future reference. What emotion this crew musters falls to Hellen, when she gets stabbed you truly find her sympathetic; she’s the one person who reliably exudes vulnerability. As battles of the sexes go, this one is brutal, and the petrol emotion of doing it all in the office magnifies the body count – Carter may be an ass, but it’s Tom who’s the real brute here.
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