Best Selling Books by Neil Labute

Bash Three darkly brilliant one-act plays, unblinking portraits of the evils abroad in everyday life, first performed in 1999. ''You don''t need to be familiar with Greek tragedy to admire LaBute''s ability to illuminate the dark corners of the human mind . . . He writes with unblinking candour, unvarying incisiveness and the ear and eye for the tiny, telling fact that reveals a character floundering on the edge.'' The Times Reasons to Be Pretty Nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play, Reasons to Be Pretty explores love, language and power with fresh wit and insight. ''Neil LaBute at his best. It says things about love and betrayal that are rarely put on stage . . . The play has the transfixing nastiness that has made LaBute one of the most disturbing theatrical presences of the last decade. Yet it also has an unexpected ingredient: a beating heart.'' Observer Now collected with its sequel, which follows the same four loveable characters - Reasons to Be Happy ''A richly entertaining shard of tragicomedy . . . a snap survey of American masculinity in crisis.'' Daily Telegraph If I Needed Someone A drunken first date becomes an acutely observed dance of desire, expectation and consent. ''For all of its misunderstandings, misperceptions, and bristles, for all the insecurities and past hurt it opens for both characters, If I Needed Someone is the kind of first date that people looking for love dream of having.'' Broadway World How to Fight Loneliness A married couple call on a third man to help them make a desperate decision, in this compelling and unsettling drama. How to Fight Loneliness received its UK premiere at the Park Theatre, London, in April 2025. ''A play that will force you to consider your own sense of mortality . . . starkly devastating.'' Spectrum

Filthy Talk for Troubled Time is one of his earliest plays. A downbeat night at a topless bar exposes the gulf between the twitchy clientele and the waitresses who serve but despise them. The Mercy Seat examines a couple who, on the day after a world-changing atrocity, toy with exploiting it to start a new life. Some Girl(s) follows a young writer''s panicked retreat from his imminent wedding as he seeks out old girlfriends and opens new wounds, while in This Is How It Goes the breakdown of a seemingly successful marriage is complicated by submerged bigotry and hatred. The collection also includes two short plays about relationships in crisis - A Second of Pleasure and Helter Skelter - which are in equal part tender and chilling. Together these plays form a complex and compelling portrait of the sexes - sometimes warring, sometimes loving, but never fully at peace.

Your Friends & Neighbors is a searing display of the war between the sexes, delivered with the kind of wit used by the great Restoration playwrights to expose the hypocrisies in male/female relationships. Neil Labute''s debut feature, in the company of men, was described by Variety as "a dark, probing, truly disturbing exploration of yuppie angst and male anxieties". In Your Friends & Neighbors, male anxiety is again on show, but in a much wider context, revealing the rabid desire of people-regardless of sex- to serve their own interests at any cost.

''LaBute takes us to shadowy places we don''t like to talk about, sometimes even to think about.'' Newsday Obsession with surface and secrets runs through this second collection of Neil LaBute''s work. The Shape of Things peels back the skin of modern-day relationships to ask how far someone might change themselves for love, or for art. In Fat Pig, a man confronts his friends'' - and his own - fixation with Hollywood ideals of beauty when he falls for a ''plus size'' young woman. In a Dark Dark House and In a Forest, Dark and Deep are twin tales of sibling conflict. In the first, estranged brothers must reconcile conflicting memories, after one asks for corroboration of childhood abuse. In the second, a man''s offer to help his sister clear out her cottage brings a terrible confession into the light. The Shape of Things ''What initially seems a touching study of student romance develops instead into a passionate discussion about the way art feeds on life.'' Daily Telegraph Fat Pig ''As large as Helen is, the tender heart of the play is easily twice as big.'' Variety In a Dark Dark House ''LaBute toys with expectations and takes pleasure in our discomfort... The play does lead to a pretty dark place - but the ending is not without hope.'' Daily Mail In a Forest, Dark and Deep ''It is billed as being about sibling rivalry, but in fact majors on far deeper, dangerous things: the yearning to be understood, female manipulation, and fascinated male disgust at a sister''s lurid sexuality.'' The Times

''LaBute takes us to shadowy places we don''t like to talk about, sometimes even to think about.'' Newsday Obsession with surface and secrets runs through this second collection of Neil LaBute''s work. The Shape of Things peels back the skin of modern-day relationships to ask how far someone might change themselves for love, or for art. In Fat Pig, a man confronts his friends'' - and his own - fixation with Hollywood ideals of beauty when he falls for a ''plus size'' young woman. In a Dark Dark House and In a Forest, Dark and Deep are twin tales of sibling conflict. In the first, estranged brothers must reconcile conflicting memories, after one asks for corroboration of childhood abuse. In the second, a man''s offer to help his sister clear out her cottage brings a terrible confession into the light. The Shape of Things ''What initially seems a touching study of student romance develops instead into a passionate discussion about the way art feeds on life.'' Daily Telegraph Fat Pig ''As large as Helen is, the tender heart of the play is easily twice as big.'' Variety In a Dark Dark House ''LaBute toys with expectations and takes pleasure in our discomfort... The play does lead to a pretty dark place - but the ending is not without hope.'' Daily Mail In a Forest, Dark and Deep ''It is billed as being about sibling rivalry, but in fact majors on far deeper, dangerous things: the yearning to be understood, female manipulation, and fascinated male disgust at a sister''s lurid sexuality.'' The Times

Two short companion pieces. In a chic restaurant in New York city, a man and his wife meet to take a break from Christmas shopping. He doesn''t know that she has already seen him today. Elsewhere in town, a couple part. He goes to the office, she visits a clinic. As events unfold, it becomes clear that this is not just any ordinary day.

The title play, which had its American premiere at La MaMa in 2012, rivetingly explores the relationship between a nervous older man and a glib young prostitute, as their evening together drives toward a startling conclusion. Also included is the one-act play The Great War, which looks at a divorcing couple and the ground they need to cross to reach their own end of hostilities; In the Beginning, which was written as a response to the Occupy movement and produced around the world in 2012-13 as part of Theatre Uncut; The Wager, the stage version of the film Double or Nothing starring Adam Brody; the two-handers A Guy Walks Into a Bar, Over the River and Through the Woods, and Strange Fruit; and two powerful new monologues, Bad Girl and The Pony of Love.

Neil LaBute''s Bash is a collection of three darkly brilliant one-act plays. In ''Medea Redux'', a woman tells of her complex and ultimately tragic relationship with her junior high-school English teacher. In ''Iphigenia in Orem'', a Utah businessman confides in a stranger in a Las Vegas hotel room, confessing to an especially chilling crime. In ''A Gaggle of Saints'', a young Mormon couple separately recount the violent events of an anniversary weekend in New York City. All three are unblinking portraits of the evils that are abroad in everyday life; each is distinguished by the raw and yet lyrical intensity that has become Neil Labute''s signature.

Brad and Jodie need Tate to do them a favour. A really big favour. Brad is married to Jodie. Jodie went to school with Tate. Tate doesn''t trust Brad. Brad and Jodie are at a life-changing crossroads and struggling to make a monumental decision about their life and love, and Tate--just maybe--has been there before. In this timely, dark, and dazzling new play, Neil LaBute takes a penetrating, point-blank look at a couple confronting the hardest decision of their lives and the aftermath of that decision. How To Fight Loneliness is Neil LaBute''s most shocking, and also most tender, play yet.

Against a glittering jazz-age backdrop, mistress of the house Julie and ambitious servant John face off in a gripping, night-long encounter. As the balance of power shifts often and dangerously---sometimes with exquisite subtlety, sometimes stark brutality---LaBute masterfully reinterprets Strindberg''s timeless erotic struggle between a man and a woman. This thrilling, essential Miss Julie, which had its world premiere at the Geffen Playhouse in 2013 with Lily Rabe as Julie, Logan Marshall-Green as John, and Laura Heisler as Kristine, superbly embodies both the passionate spirit of the original and the unflinching style of Neil LaBute.

This collection includes one full-length play, WRECKS, and seven short plays, COAX, FALLING IN LIKE, LAND OF THE DEAD, LIARS CLUB, LOVE AT TWENTY, STAND-UP, and UNION SQUARE. WRECKS: Can someone honestly love a person whom they have deceived for thirty years? This is the central question behind WRECKS, Neil LaBute''s latest foray into the dark side of human nature. Meet Edward Carr: loving father, successful businessman, grieving widower. In this concise powerhouse of a play, LaBute limns the boundaries of love, exploring the limits of what society will accept versus what the heart will desire. This collection also features the short plays UNION SQUARE, LOVE AT TWENTY, LAND OF THE DEAD, STAND-UP, LIARS CLUB, COAX, and FALLING IN LIKE. UNION SQUARE: A man headed downtown from Union Square asks directions from a homeless man and winds up sharing the details of his marriage and the unexpected contents of his lunch bag. LOVE AT TWENTY: A college student veers between idolatry and vengeance. LAND OF THE DEAD: A New York couple part. He goes to the office, she to a clinic. As events unfold, it becomes clear that this is very far from an ordinary day. STAND-UP: An amateur comic struggles with his new routine. LIARS CLUB: A group of actors addresses the audience. Are they performing a script or sharing personal stories? COAX: Jacob, a nice young man, eagerly anticipates a meeting with the Internet friend with whom he''s corresponded for months. When the young lady finally arrives, Jacob informs us of his plans for her. FALLING IN LIKE: A woman waits at a table. She''s very sure he''s going to show up. He''s a little late, but he always shows up. It''s their anniversary after all. All right, once or twice maybe he didn''t show up. Perhaps she''ll wait just a few more minutes, because he will show up.

Debbie Zakowski presents interdisciplinary extension activities for kindergarten classes based on "The Shape of Things," a book by children''s author Dayle Ann Dodds. Zakowski includes a synopsis of the book and suggestions for reading the story. The Central Falls School District in Central Falls, Rhode Island, provides the activities online.