BURLINGTON, Vt. -- Champlain Theatre starts off its 2010-2011 season with Neil LaBute's play "The Shape of Things," a modern day telling of the fall of man. Written and directed by Neil LaBute, the play explores painful questions on the nature of art, intimacy and love, and the limits people will push to prove themselves.

The play runs Oct. 28-30 and Nov. 3-6 at 8 p.m. at FlynnSpace. General admission is $20, faculty and staff admission is $10. Admission for Champlain College students is free with ID. To reserve tickets call 802-86-FLYNN. (See review below)

The "Shape of Things" unfolds with a chance meeting in a museum, Evelyn, a sexy aggressive artist, and Adam, a shy, insecure student, who become embroiled in an intense affair. Before long, it veers into the kind of dangerous, seductive territory that LaBute does best, as Adam, under Evelyn's steady influence, goes to unimaginable lengths to improve his appearance and character. Only in the final and shocking exhibition, which challenges our most deeply entrenched ideas about art and love, does Evelyn reveal her true intentions.

Champlain Theater presents local theater with a unique mix of professional actors, emerging artists, community members, faculty and students collaborating to provide a dynamic performance.

It will present "Antigone," a contemporary translation of the classic tale that pits individual vs. society in a confrontation of power, fate and death. It runs Feb. 23-26, 2011 at the FlynnSpace. For more information, Joanne Farrell, director of the Champlain Theatre (802) 865-5468, email: farrell@champlain.edu

Champlain College was founded in 1878 and currently has nearly 2,000 undergraduate students. To learn more about Champlain College, visit www.champlain.edu

"THE SHAPE OF THINGS," PRESENTED BY CHAMPLAIN THEATRE, Oct. 28-30 and Nov. 3-6 at 8 p.m. at the FlynnSpace Theater, Main Street, Burlington. Neil LaBute's play, set on a college campus, is a modern day telling of the fall of man in the pursuit of art and love. General admission $20, faculty and staff $10, and Champlain College students free. For tickets call 802-86-FLYNN. For more information, Joanne Farrell, (802) 865-5468 or email: farrell@champlain.edu.

Burlington Free Press review 10/31/10

'Shape of 'Things' is clever, but climax lacks sufficient impact

By Brent Hallenbeck

The things we do for love might be rivaled only by the things we do for art. That is the twist that d
rives the Neil LaBute play "The Shape of  Things," which Champlain Theatre opened Thursday night at FlynnSpace.

The play that starts as a slight comedy-drama and ends as a whoathat's- almost-too-much-drama drama hinges on a serious punch line that, unfortunately, is telegraphed early in the second act, making the potentially staggering impact of the conclusion more wobbly than staggering. The key moment is delivered in the penultimate scene, making the lengthy final scene as necessary as the appendix in the
human body.

The human body figures greatly in "The Shape of Things," which introduces the audience to Evelyn (played by Kim Jordan), a provocative, spray-paint-wielding art student who's about to vandalize an objectionable nude sculpture at her small Midwestern campus when she's accosted by Adam (Jayden M. Choquette), a nice but awkward security guard. He's drawn to her sexy, flirty ways while she's drawn to his 'Äî well, we're not quite sure why she's drawn to him, at least at first.

The first date we see them on is at a college production of the vicious Greek tragedy "Medea," which gives us our first more-than-obvious clue of the direction this play is heading.

They're joined by friends of Adam's, Jenny and Philip (Emily Marie Benway and Benjamin Cavallari).
Jenny and Adam have a long-standing but unconsummated thing for each other that's seemingly in the past now that Jenny and Philip are engaged and Adam is head over bootstraps for Evelyn, who we vaguely learn is on the verge of completing her art-thesis project.

Adam is so ga-ga over Evelyn that he admits to her that he traces her name in whatever food he's eating. "I am so whipped," he tells her. She, on the other hand, begins to whip him into for contact lenses and upgrading his wardrobe a few dozen notches, so much so that his best friend Philip '" and his newly piqued not-quite-old-flame Jenny" can't help but notice. He's new and improved, his friends think, but is he still Adam?

LaBute's play is clever, sometimes amusing and occasionally charming but ultimately stumbles because the playwright clearly had an ending in mind and skimmed over the details in the beginning and the middle to get there. The four-member cast, though, directed by Champlain College acting instructor Joanne Farrell, does fine work with the iffy but intriguing premise they're handed.

Choquette, a May graduate from the St. Michael's College theater department (this is a Champlain College production, yet none of the actors are Champlain students, though many of the crew members are), is the fulcrum at the Advertisement center of the production. He gives Adam a Michael Keaton-like boyish awshucks- ness, building the depth of that trait into his character with a tentative "gosh... dang it" near the end of the first act that shows just how engagingly naive this Midwestern kid really is. But his flashes of anger at the end of "The Shape of Things" reveal Choquette to be a promising young actor with a full tool box of skills at his disposal.

Jordan, whose Burlington performance resume includes slam poetry and a role in the weird and wild mayhem that was "The Once and Future Ubu," is just what Evelyn needs to be 'Äî beguiling, hypnotizing and in possession of a mind capable of great, "Medea"-like treachery. There's never any doubt why Adam would be drawn to her.

Benway and Cavallari have far less time on stage, though Cavallari makes his presence known by aptly bringing out the unabashed boorishness of Philip, who can't begin to understand art (or much else). Benway delightfully delivers a few of the play's top bon mots 'Äî the best, perhaps, when she notes that
Philip is "six things away from being amazing" 'Äî but frequently rushes her lines too much for the weight of her words to be heard.

The only consistent piece on the set (designed by Burlington playwright Jim Lantz) is a twisty red sculpture that resembles an intestine with a colleg more than a little extraneous, until it starts to resemble not so much a pretzel of innards as Adam's heart being all tied up in knots. That's what love, and art, will do to a guy.

Contact Brent Hallenbeck at 660-1844 or bhallenbeck@burlingtonfreepress.com