Regarding Neil LaBute's Mother
I'm a huge Neil LaBute fan. This is something that I struggle with, because he hates women a whole lot. I like to say, "Yeah, but he hates men, too. He's an equal opportunity hater," but that's pretty much bullshit.
I've been mad at Neil LaBute for the past couple of weeks, ever since I saw The Wicker Man. The film wasn't just bad, it was bad to the point where I thought he may have been joking. Now, I never saw the original, so I don't know how loosely based on it this version was, but a bunch of evil women running an island? And keeping men as pets/servants? And sacrificing men to the goddess? And Nick Cage punching a whole lot of ladies in their faces? It wasn't just misogynistic, it was hysterical and paranoid.
Still, when I heard about his new play Wrecks, I was intrigued. The Young Man, who is, in his words, "a very important person in the theater industry," was able to get us tickets for yesterday's afternoon performance. If you plan on seeing this, you might want to stop reading now, because I'm basically going to summarize the whole thing and give away the big plot twist at the end.
The entire play is a monologue by Ed Harris. He's at JoJo, his wife's, funeral. He tells us how much he loved JoJo. He tells us in squirmy detail how much he loved having sex with JoJo. He tells us what a wonderful woman JoJo was. The whole time, I'm thinking two things: 1) Ed Harris is truly amazing and 2) Where's all the woman hating?
I thought maybe Neil LaBute had turned a corner. Maybe he was going to just hate women on the inside, instead of subjecting us to it over and over. Maybe this play was really going to be about a man who loved his wife.
Or, you know, maybe not. See, JoJo had a secret. When JoJo was 15, she was raped by an uncle and became pregnant. She was sent away and forced to give her son up for adoption. That son later spent years trying to track down his mother. When he finally did, he didn't tell her he was her son. No, he married her and had kids with her instead. That son was Ed Harris. For the 30 years he was married to JoJo, he never told her she was his mother.
Seriously, people. What must Neil LaBute's mother be like? I'm thinking she's probably a cross between Joan Crawford and Susan Smith.
