I understand what you are saying here, however, feel perhaps excess, excess, excess, or a sensory experience for that matter is needed when texts, their psychology, and narrative drive have been given the front seat for so many years. Excess in itself could be considered a text, not knowing where to look, being obliterated by imagery or sound, has its own little story to tell. As a visual exercise, I think, successful or not, Kantor’s MTV approach to theatre provides an exciting contrast to text-based plays consumed with words rather than exploring the live possibilities of stage practice.

I don’t doubt that there is no such thing as pure objectivity in criticism, but question how the integration of personal experience within the same context of the criticism effects that informed subjectivity. Is the potential impact and ‘worth’ (again, a highly subjective valuation) of a review lessened if it sits alongside anecdotes, and less analytical, more personal accounts?

But I do agree, in essence, that regardless of such theoretical concerns, nothing beats a well-written argument which can be debated.

Thanks for the note regarding the play’s publication. For some reason I seemed to have remembered it mentioned in publicity material for Eldorado as being one of his earlier works, but I stand corrected. However, I still think it feels like a less mature Mayenburg.

I agree with your summation on what you think the play is about, and I think that it’s interesting, and to Mayenburg’s credit, that the no physical transformation and doubling are written into the script rather than independent dierctorial decisions.

However, this does little to change my opinion on the writing – I think that the metaphor is sustained, yes, but I don’t think that anything is done with it. From the moment Lette undergoes the surgery, the subtext and social commentary becomes painfully obvious, and the message becomes laboriously communicated through the ‘farce’. Like I said in the review, it’s a single idea play.

And what it comes down to with The Ugly One is that I have heard what it is saying so many times before. To be honest, I don’t know how much more can be said about celebrity culture, body obsession and contemporary bourgeois narcicissim without at least trying to be a little more brave. For me, the writing is not exciting or in any way challenging; it didn’t make me think, and it didn’t really make me laugh either.

I wonder if you would have liked it as much had you seen it in performance and not read it? A shame you missed it certainly, but perhaps Benedict and Michael will have something to say about that!

The seed premise is hardly science fiction – that “revolutionary surgery” drives an industry – there are all these people running around with Angelina Jolie’s nose and Jennifer Aniston’s chin. Among other things, it’s about contemporary narcissism, and the idea of indiividuality, how crucially our sense of uniqueness plays to our sense of self: the surgery leaves Lette looking (to us) exactly the same as he did before (the shifts between different characters with identical names, played by the same actors, and the fact that no change is observable after surgery is written into the text, it’s not a directorial decision, but a crucial dimension of the play itself). What changes is not Lette, but everyone else’s behaviour, and that changes who he is. And then he has all these supposed doubles. At least on the page, it’s a beautifully sustained theatrical metaphor, which goes rather deeper than satire. A gorgeous piece of writing, I think.

cheers, Irreclaimable.