The Ugly One - Starting with the Nose
We start with the nose because it's the furthest from the face says the plastic surgeon Steffler. Again and again as he remodels whole faces to look like ugly man Lette turned beautiful. German playwright Marius von Mayenburg (as translated to English by Maja Zade) spins out an allegory for modern times. Directed crisply by Richard Wolfe, this play speeds along making the same point time and again - beauty IS skin-deep.
Lette, a successful industrial inventor, cannot present his own work at a conference because he is hideously ugly (as explained by his boss and confirmed by his wife). This situation leads to Steffler's experiment which gives Lette a beautiful face and new opportunities in life. Mostly these involve actually presenting at conferences and seducing women on behalf of his company. His inventor work falls aside and he becomes obsessed with his own beauty. Narcissus, anyone?
As a woman, I wonder how much of this is true for a man. Can a beautiful face supercede the rules of meritocracy? Truly - would a boss send a young junior subordinate to a major conference to stump a major new product? I understand the man in the play is intended to be much much more UGLY than the actor portraying him. Yet if so, I do have trouble suspending my disbelief that this hideous face has never caused Lette any trouble in the past... he has merrily rolled along until this one boss decided to pass him over for a more attractive co-worker.
I really appreciate seeing Canadian productions of contemporary plays by foreign writers. Yet as an audience member, I sometimes wonder if the play has a different resonance or meaning in its original language / country of origin. My reaction to everything I see is through my own eyes, my own culture, my own generation, my own gender and perhaps most importantly my own geography. With this play, though I appreciated the excellent production, I don't know why it is relevant to me as a Canadian woman living in Vancouver, BC. I already know beauty is skin-deep and the first world may value looks over brains. Though amusing, this show didn't give me any deep new insights.
The four actors created a strong ensemble - and I thought the staging in the round was effective. Hats off to the designers who created a stark environment for the cast to explore the text. Using only black and white, light and dark, the design team reinforced the dual nature of the play. You are beautiful or ugly - there is no inbetween. Guess that's why everyone in the play wants to be beautiful - the alternative is intolerable.
Overall, the script dialogue is good and so is the production. But I hope next time the playwright offers a more in-depth exploration of his theme so that audiences in Germany and beyond are forced to think beyond a simple duality. Perhaps the playwright is extrapolating what the world might be like if there was only beauty or ugliness... I don't think that's a terribly interesting premise. There is a vast spectrum of humanity and we are the better for it.