Neil LaBute: Plays 3: Bash; Reasons to be Pretty; Reasons to be Happy; If I Needed Someone; How to Fight Loneliness

Bash Three darkly brilliant one-act plays, unblinking portraits of the evils abroad in everyday life, first performed in 1999. 'You don't need to be familiar with Greek tragedy to admire LaBute's ability to illuminate the dark corners of the human mind . . . He writes with unblinking candour, unvarying incisiveness and the ear and eye for the tiny, telling fact that reveals a character floundering on the edge.' The Times Reasons to Be Pretty Nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play, Reasons to Be Pretty explores love, language and power with fresh wit and insight. 'Neil LaBute at his best. It says things about love and betrayal that are rarely put on stage . . . The play has the transfixing nastiness that has made LaBute one of the most disturbing theatrical presences of the last decade. Yet it also has an unexpected ingredient: a beating heart.' Observer Now collected with its sequel, which follows the same four loveable characters - Reasons to Be Happy 'A richly entertaining shard of tragicomedy . . . a snap survey of American masculinity in crisis.' Daily Telegraph If I Needed Someone A drunken first date becomes an acutely observed dance of desire, expectation and consent. 'For all of its misunderstandings, misperceptions, and bristles, for all the insecurities and past hurt it opens for both characters, If I Needed Someone is the kind of first date that people looking for love dream of having.' Broadway World How to Fight Loneliness A married couple call on a third man to help them make a desperate decision, in this compelling and unsettling drama. How to Fight Loneliness received its UK premiere at the Park Theatre, London, in April 2025. 'A play that will force you to consider your own sense of mortality . . . starkly devastating.' Spectrum

About the Author :
Neil LaBute received his MFA Fine Arts in dramatic writing from New York University and received a literary fellowship at the Royal Court Theatre, London. He was also Playwright-in-Residence at MCC Theatre, New York City. His plays include bash: latter-day plays, The Shape of Things, The Mercy Seat, The Distance from Here, Fat Pig (nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Comedy), Wrecks, Filthy Talk for Troubled Times, Reasons to be Pretty and In a Forest, Dark and Deep. His films include In the Company of Men, Possession, The Shape of Things, Your Friends & Neighbours, Lakeview Terrace and Out of the Blue.