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Posted 24 Feb 2001   For week ended September 03, 2000
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News about Mormons, Mormonism,
and the LDS Church
Sent on Mormon-News: 28Aug00

Summarized by Kent Larsen

LDS Playwright Neil LaBute's 'Bash' on Showtime Tonight

NEW YORK, NEW YORK -- LDS Church member Neil LaBute's controversial show "Bash: Latterday Plays" will be shown in a television version on the cable channel Showtime at 8 p.m. tonight. Ahead of the play, several newspapers reviewed the performances and LaBute's work, acknowledging its dark and controversial nature, but often praising the work.

The set of three plays, "A Gaggle of Saints," "Medea Redux," and "Iphigenia in Orem" all feature Mormon characters, but most LDS Church members won't recognize them because of their basically evil nature. "Just what it has to do with Mormonism is unclear" writes the LA Weekly in its review of the show, but speculates that LaBute may be saying that "religion is no guarantee of right action," not much of a revelation according to the LA Weekly. Unlike other reviews, the LA Weekly isn't much impressed, saying that each play ends "not so much as a shock as a relief that it's over and done with."

Other reviewers are much more impressed. The New York Daily News praises the performances of Calista Flockhart (TV's Ally McBeal), Ron Eldard and Paul Rudd, saying that "'Bash' works because the intensity of the monologues is matched, in every case, by the performances." In the New York Times reviewer Julie Salamon praises LaBute's text saying he "understands that words matter. . . . He's tuned in to the strangely poetic rhythms in everyday speech and the telling details of workaday life." Both the Daily News and the Times praised LaBute's direction of the filming of the stage version (directed by Joe Mantello).

LaBute first gained notoriety with his low-budget independent film "In the Company of Men," which tells the story of mysogynistic men who take advantage of women while on assignment in a distant city from their company's home base. "Bash" opened off-Broadway in New York City last year, and has also been presented in London, Los Angeles and Washington DC.

Sources:

Brutally Superb 'Bash'
New York NY Daily News 28Aug00 A2

It's Evil, and Often It's Not So Banal
New York Times 28Aug00 A2
By Julie Salamon

TV Review: B-Pictures: Bull, Bash, Blonde Bombshells and a Sandy Bottom
LA Weekly 25Aug00 A2
By Robert Lloyd


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