Synopses & Reviews
Belinda and Cody Phipps
appear a typical Midwestern couple: teenage sweethearts, children, luxurious home. Typical except that Cody is black--"rich, black, and different," in the words of Belinda, who finds herself attracted to a former (white) classmate. As the battle for her affections is waged, Belinda and Cody frankly doubt the foundation of their initial attraction, opening the door wide to a swath of bigotry and betrayal. Staged on continually shifting moral ground that challenges our received notions about gender, ethnicity, and even love itself,
This Is How It Goes unblinkingly explores the myriad ways in which the wild card of race is played by both black and white in America.
Neil LaBute is a critically acclaimed writer-director for both the stage and screen. His works include the plays The Distance from Here and bash: latterday plays and the films In the Company of Men, Your Friends and Neighbors, Nurse Betty, and Possession, as well as the play and film adaptation of The Shapes of Things. Challenging received notions of gender, ethnicity, morality, and even love, This Is How It Goes unblinkingly explores the wild card of race in Americaas played by both blacks and whites. This new drama gives us LaBute's "most sophisticatedly structured and emotionally complex story yet . . . A taut firecracker of a play about an interracial love triangle that may do for liberal racism what David Mamet's Oleanna did for sexual harassment" (Time Out New York). "Seldom has [LaBute's] heart expressed itself as ambitiously or compellingly as it does in This Is How It Goes, the most frank, fearless look at race relations from a white dramatist since Rebecca Gilman's Spinning into Butter."USA Today "Seldom has [LaBute's] heart expressed itself as ambitiously or compellingly as it does in This Is How It Goes, the most frank, fearless look at race relations from a white dramatist since Rebecca Gilman's Spinning into Butter."USA Today
"LaBute . . . continues to probe the fascinating dark side of individualism . . . [His] great gift is to live and to chronicle that murky area of not-knowing, which mankind spends much of its waking life denying."John Lahr, The New Yorker
"Neil LaBute is the first dramatist since David Mamet and Sam Shepardsince Edward Albee, actuallyto mix sympathy and savagery, pathos and power."Donald Lyons, New York Post
"LaBute [is] our Amrican Aesop, a mad moral fabulist serving stiff tonic for our country's sin-sick souls."John Istel, American Theatre
"Like a chiropractor of the soul, LaBute for realignment, listening for a crack."John Istel, Elle
Review
"Neil LaBute is the first dramatist since David Mamet and Sam Shepard--since Edward Albee, actually--to mix sympathy and savagery, pathos and power." --Donald Lyons,
New York Post"LaBute [is] our Amrican Aesop, a mad moral fabulist serving stiff tonic for our country's sin-sick souls." --John Istel, American Theatre
Synopsis
Belinda and Cody Phipps
appear a typical Midwestern couple: teenage sweethearts, children, luxurious home. Typical except that Cody is black--"rich, black, and different," in the words of Belinda, who finds herself attracted to a former (white) classmate. As the battle for her affections is waged, Belinda and Cody frankly doubt the foundation of their initial attraction, opening the door wide to a swath of bigotry and betrayal. Staged on continually shifting moral ground that challenges our received notions about gender, ethnicity, and even love itself,
This Is How It Goes unblinkingly explores the myriad ways in which the wild card of race is played by both black and white in America.
About the Author
Neil LaBute is a playwright, filmmaker, and fiction writer. His most recent work for the stage is
The Distance from Here, which premiered Off Broadway in 2004.