Beautiful Man by Erin Shields, flips the perspective of the world on its head and subjects men to the same treatment that women usually experience. It’s grueling, vulgar and degrading, but it’s supposed to be. It’s also darkly funny. Audiences find themselves laughing at the brutality while asking themselves if they should be laughing.
The play was originally developed in 2019 and is an Alberta Premiere Co-Produced by Downstage, Handsome Alice Theatre, and Verb Theatre. It takes place in the Motel theatre, which makes it all the more brutal because the small space doesn’t allow for anyone to detach and look away. It is depicted by three artists, Meg Farhall, Linda Kee, and Katelyn Morishita. They start out by telling us about a new cop movie, where the main character, a detective is investigating a serial killer. It’s the typical crime movie, tough cop, too much drinking, and a devoted partner who barely has any lines and doesn’t get a name. That’s a common theme throughout the production, where the beautiful man either doesn’t have a name or it’s forgotten almost immediately. But we remember other aspects of his physical being.
The narrative goes through a play within a movie within a play, all depicting ruling queens, a full puppet dominance scene, and back to the cop movie. At many points in time the audience is asking themselves, what are we talking about again? Where are we? It takes away from the biting perspective that Shields is trying to offer. But her work is effective in its brutality. With Joel David Taylor on the far end of the stage, depicting every beautiful man, Shields knows how to twist the knife of brutality.
Towards the end, Taylor tells stories from the female perspective and illustrates the different standards that exist. How we don’t want to see women aging in media. How choosing to dress up and wear makeup could lead to unwanted attention. How the female psyche is always in a state of harm reduction and people-pleasing, those people usually being men.
Farhall, Kee, and Morishita work well together and present graphic pictures and brutality with their expressions and body movement. Farhall is quite good when she is portraying a puppet. Adam Kostiuk’s lighting design is an important player in this production.
Taylor’s long monologue is unfortunately more compelling because there is a storyline that is clear to follow. Shield’s narrative might have been clearer if she had added a clear story throughout that wasn’t so muddied by three unreliable narrators, but then her message might not have been so poignant.
Beautiful Man produced by Downstage, Handsome Alice Theatre and Verb Theatre runs until March 10th. More information is available online.
Photo Credit: Mike Tan