BASH director Pascale Smith
Neil LaBute is not one to shy away from the darker aspects of life. Bash: Latter-Day Plays illustrates the evil inherent in everyday life through four characters: a charismatic young business man, a disturbed mother, and a beautiful couple. Each character confesses to a horrible crime, and while the events recounted are violent and shocking, the most terrifying aspect of each scenario is its plausibility. The characters are so realistic and ordinary that they create an unsettling intimacy with the audience, both physically and dramatically, as they address the audience directly in a small, bare theater.
Neil LaBute studied theater at Brigham Young University, a college in Utah owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints. While at BYU, he converted to the Mormon faith. He then went on to write numerous plays that pushed the envelope in terms of what was accepted in such a conservative religious school. Some of his plays were shut down after their premiers. On one occasion, college authorities locked the theater to prevent a performance. In BASH, his depiction of three essentially good members of the Mormon Church committing violent crimes got him “disfellowshipped” from the church, after which he formally abandoned his relationship with the faith.
This play is one that will make you think. Each character gives you a human face to the monsters shown in news stories—the person who attacks another based on ethnic, religious, or sexual differences, the parent who kills their children, the person who chooses to sit back and watch these crimes manifest. This work makes you wonder—are we all capable of excusing an atrocious act?
– Pascale Smith, August 14, 2011
