Neil LaBute

A Casebook

Gerald C. Wood

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• eBook ISBN: 9781135866969
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Biographies
• Index: Literature

Neil LaBute: A Casebook is the first book to examine one of the most successful and controversial contemporary American playwrights and filmmakers. While he is most famous, and in some cases infamous, for his early films In the Company of Men and Your Friends and Neighbors, Labute is equally accomplished as a playwright. His work extends from the critique of false religiosity in Bash to examinations of opportunism, irresponsible art, failed parenting, and racism in later plays like Mercy Seat, The Shape of Things, The Distance From Here, Fat Pig, Autobahn, and the very recent This Is How It Goes and Some Girls.

Like David Mamet, an acknowledged influence on him, and Conor McPhereson, with whom he shares some stylistic and thematic concerns, LaBute tends to polarize audiences. The angry voices, violent situations, and irresponsible behavior in his works, especially those focusing on male characters, have alienated some viewers. But the writer's religious affiliation and refusal to condone the actions of his characters suggest he is neither exploitive nor pornographic.

This casebook explores the primary issues of the writer's style, themes, and dramatic achievements. Contributors describe, for example, the influences (both classical and contemporary) on his work, his distinctive vision in theater and film, the role of religious belief in his work, and his satire. In addition to the critical introduction by Wood and the original essays by leading dramatic and literary scholars, the volume also includes a bibliography and a chronology of the playwright's life and works.

Index

A

Acorn Theater (New York City) xiii, 141

Aeschylus 24

Aird, Holly 142

Albee, Edward 4, 5, 62, 101, 144

Allen, Woody 106, 149

Almeida Theatre (London) xii, 37, 112, 141, 146

Also Sprach Zarathustra (see Friedrich Nietzsche) 62, 71

Annie (see John Huston) 21

Aristophanes 23–24, 31, 35, 36, 152

ataxia 33

Atkinson, Ashlie 141

Aunt Dan and Lemon (see Wallace Shawn) 4, 16, 100

B

Bacchae 28, 30, 31, 36, 37

Bacon, Kevin 40, 141

Baraka, Amiri 4

Baudelaire 5, 62

Beckett, Samuel 62

“The Birthmark” (see Nathaniel Hawthorne) 4

Bible, The 14, 17, 59–60, 66, 144

Bond, Edward 4, 36

Bonney, Jo xiii, 141, 142

Brecht, Bertolt 98, 100, 122

Bridget Jones’s Diary 75

Brigham Young University xi, 3, 15, 16, 18, 19, 93, 102

Browning, Christopher 5, 53–54, 55, 60

Buber, Martin vii, 5, 53–54, 56–59, 60

Burrow, Saffron 142

Burstyn, Ellen 143

Byatt, A. S. xiii, 133

C

Cage, Nicholas 40, 143

Cannes Film Festival xii

Cape Fear (see Martin Scorsese) 21

Carnal Knowledge 4

Carr, Marina 4

Carradine, david 105...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Neil LaBute Chronology
• General Editor's Note
• Introduction
• Biographical/Contextual Essays
• Perspectives on Religion and Morality
• The LaBute Style
• A Bibliography of Neil LaBute's Works
• Contributors
• Index