This Is How It Goes

Critiqued by Holly Bartges

Acting natural on stage has to be one of the most difficult aspects of acting, particularly acting natural while assuming a character. Scott McLean as Man knocks the socks off in Neil Labute’s deadly honest play This Is How it Goes currently on the stage of Crossroads Theatre.

Emily Paton Davies and Tyee Tilghman star in Paragon Theatre's This Is How It Goes. Erin Tyler © E Tyler Photography/Paragon

LaBute doesn’t pull any punches when he attacks a theme. He attacks with all four hooves balanced for power. Some claim he’s an angry writer, which only writes him off as someone who can entertain, but doesn’t need to be taken seriously.

In This Is How It Goes, LaBute cuts sharply into the reality of human nature. We would like to believe we’re pure of heart. We would like to believe we’re not prejudice. I am. It’s no secret, though I admit I’m careful as to the when and where. No, not by race or creed, but I am prejudice about sloppy individuals, lazy individuals, people who have never learned to think for themselves, abusive, demeaning, pretentious people. I have a difficult time with those who proclaim Spiritual Love and carry hate signs for those who don’t agree with them. Evidently LaBute does too, which is one of the reasons he wrote This Is How It Goes.

In a world of political correctness, where supposed guidelines dictate what is said, how it is said, and when it is said destroys honesty and realness to the quick. We’re oftentimes forced to say things we don’t mean, but what is it we think in the hollows of our mind where no one can hear, but sometimes feel?

LaBute may make us squirm with discomfort because he knows how to drive a stake straight into the heart of a matter, but hopefully he makes us think.

At the very beginning, McLean’s Man makes it clear, “OK, this is how it goes, or went, or is going to be…” Never once does he carve intentions into stone as a universal truth. McLean becomes so naturally relaxed and at ease that when he addresses the audience with questions, I needed to bite my lip hard to keep from responding,

“You need to know,” he says, “there is a girl”, and a soft spot highlights Belinda sitting on a bench, extraordinarily brought to life by Emily Patton Davies.

“I need to talk to her. I have to talk to her.” He never defines why, but he’s not sure if the moment is happening or has already happened. It doesn’t matter. Small talk takes over with more spaces of silence between phrases then the phrases themselves. He knew her from school and remembers a major crush he carried on his shoulders. The meeting becomes awkward, uncomfortable. Who hasn’t experienced that? She’s married now, to a jock from school, Cody, Belinda has children and a home. Is she happy? She says she is, but it’s the way she says it that tickles the brain.

The next day all three of them get together, Belinda and Man appear to be at ease. Cody, however, beams fire from his eyes. He doesn’t seem at all pleased with the meeting. Why did Man return to their small town? Dissatisfied with the answer he punches it several times into the conversation.

Cody and Belinda have a room to rent over the garage. Man needs a place to stay, Reluctantly, Cody agrees. Played by Tyree Tilghman, Cody’s edges sharpen with distrust, suspicion, and eager confrontation. Tilghman gives one of the strongest performances of his career.

What’s going on? Really going on? It’s difficult to tell at any given moment because it changes: changes with whims, changes with intent. Did she really say that? Or was it imagination? Was it because Man wanted her to say that out of whimsy, fantasy or just crude male thinking?

Director Warren Sherrill climbed inside LaBute’s cryptic script and investigated every cobwebbed corner as he drew out the characters from this astonishing cast as they lay it on the line bare naked for all to see and hear.

Within the context of This Is The Way It is, you may squirm, you react in horror, you may be offended, but stay in your seat, because as quickly as you react, things change. Maybe it did happen, then again maybe it is going to happen, and then again maybe it only happened for a split second in the mind of one person, the Narrator.

Isn’t this the way the human race honestly thinks? Saying one thing, imagining something else, evaluating what was said, exploring possibilities, right, wrong, or indifferent? Just because someone thinks a certain way, doesn’t cement it into the face of reality. Maybe it doesn’t even fit, and will immediately be discarded, but it’s been explored and that’s what counts most.

David Lafont’s simplistic scenic design works beautifully as the play moves smoothly in and out of different locations in “a smallish town in the Midwest”, dancing with Jacob Welch’s stark and striking lighting design emphasizing changes in the thought process.

This Is How It Is takes several unexpected twists and turns much in the same way the mind plays in and out of serendipitous explorations,

LaBute’s play is brilliantly constructed, ingeniously written, and awesomely performed by three actors of the highest caliber, which must be. This is not a play for novices.

Man will draw you in. You’ll want to react to him, as I did, McLean loans piercing eyes to Man and you may even feel he’s boring into your soul, that no one else is there in the theatre with you, even though the house is sold out. He’ll trip your laugh lever, he may even punch your giggle button, but he’ll take you for a high mountainous ride of sharp curves and close call drop offs.

You’ll warm to Belinda’s charm and straightforwardness, and empathize over her predicament, but you’ll understand why she got to be where she is. You’ll bristle over Cody’s cool, calculating suspicious exterior, and you’ll gasp at what he’s doing and why, but you’ll understand his motivation. He’s a powerful important person in this smallish Midwest town, and he can’t afford to lose his reputation. Can he? And you’ll experience how the characters really think, and you’ll --------only you can answer that question, which is exactly why you need to make reservations now for this incredible Paragon production. It will be the talk of the town for sometime. The talk has already started. Trust me, you’re not going to want to be out of the loop for this one.

This Is How It Goes
By Neil Labute; Directed by Warren Sherrill