THEATRE REVIEW: THE UGLY ONE
5 OCT/11

JOHN COULBOURN - QMI Agency
R: 4/5
Pictured: David Jansen

Beauty may indeed be only skin deep — but that is small comfort indeed for the esthetically deprived living in our shallow world. Rather than brood on our society’s preoccupation with pretty, however, both the beautiful people and their esthetically challenged kin can now laugh, if not at their own reflections, then at the reflections of German playwright Marius von Mayenburg.
Those reflections are all wrapped up in a bleakly funny play called THE UGLY ONE, currently playing in Tarragon Theatre’s Extra Space where it opened Tuesday in a production by Theatre Smash.


As translated by Maja Zade, THE UGLY ONE tells the story of the unfortunate Lette (played by David Jansen), a man so physically repulsive that even his loving wife (Naomi Wright) can only bear to look him in his left eye and kiss his shoulder, rather than his lips. Still, Lette has managed to remain oblivious to his facial shortcomings — until his boss (played by Hardee T. Lineham), in an attempt to sell one of Lette’s inventions, assigns Lette’s better-looking underling (Jesse Aaron Dwyre) to be the front man.


Shattered by the revelation that his co-workers and even his wife find him something far less than attractive, Lette somewhat reluctantly consigns his fate and his face to the skills of an enterprising plastic surgeon (played by Lineham) who gives him a whole new look and, along with it, a whole new outlook. As a result, Lette is soon caught up in a whole new life that involves not only undreamed-of professional success, but sexual excess as well, culminating in a torrid affair with a 73-year-old woman (Wright) and her mollycoddled son (Dwyre). But Lette’s newfound lease on the good life is threatened when he discovers the good doctor is selling the same new face to anyone with the money to buy it.


In addition to its entertainment value, THE UGLY ONE represents a major acting challenge for every single member of the four-person ensemble, most of whom are required to slip seamlessly from one character to another, often in the same scene. That said, the greatest challenge falls, not surprisingly, on Jansen, who is required to transform himself from ‘ugly’ to ‘wildly attractive’ without the prosthetic aid, despite the fact that he is, like most of us, neither.
That he is convincing in both is testament to a committed performance from a seasoned actor who clearly knows his stuff as he highlights the inner beauty of the ugly Lette then slowly revealing the growing ugliness in the remade version.

For Lineham, the opportunity to tackle two roles in one play seems to be a romp — and he tackles both the ignorant boss and the venal surgeon with glee. Meanwhile, Wright and Dwyre move back and forth between the two characters they each play with deceptive ease and grace, deploying bursts of almost panther-like sensuality with telling effect.


In the face of Camellia Koo’s all-but-overwhelming set piece — a huge table that eats up much of the available stage space in a theatre reconfigured for runway staging — director Ashlie Corcoran creates a production that permeates the entire theatre and fairly crackles with life. 
But while Corcoran does some impressive work in folding audience into production and production into audience while still milking the script for all its incisive comedy, she runs out of steam at about precisely the same time as the playwright.


As endings go, THE UGLY ONE perhaps goes just a little too far.