Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I have both read these plays and seen them produced at a small theater in Los Angeles. Whether on the page or stage, these plays are always interesting, incisive, and leave you pondering them for days afterward. Much like a good short story, LaBute is able - in just a few pages - to conjure up his worlds and characters in full, letting you know enough about them that you have a good idea (often an unsettling one, to tell the truth) of what happens to characters once the play ends.
It's not all doom and gloom, though. There are laughs throughout, even the occasional sweet moment, albeit against backdrops that aren't 100% wholesome. Although if you are looking for 100% wholesome, LaBute wouldn't be your first choice. From an acting point of view, it's difficult to find material that does a better job of celebrating theater in its most basic form. Difficult to be sure (in many of the plays, one of the characters doesn't say anything at all!), but thrilling when well executed.
The short play, like the short film, doesn't have a lot of marketability in the commercial sphere, and it is a treat that one of our leading playwrights has tried his (expert) hand at them. If you like short stories, or are a fan of good writing for the stage, you'll enjoy Autobahn.
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"Sitting in an automobile was where I first remember understanding how drama works...Hidden in the back seat of a sedan, I quickly realized how deep the chasm or intense the claustrophobia could be inside your average family car." --Neil LaButeBe it the medium for clandestine couplings, arguments, shelter, or ultimately transportation, the automobile is perhaps the most authentically American of spaces. In Autobahn, Neil LaBute's provocative new collection of one-act plays set within the confines of the front seat, the playwright employs his signature plaintive insight to great effect, investigating the inchoate apprehension that surrounds the steering wheel. Each of these seven brief vignettes explore the ethos of perception and relationship--from a make-out session gone awry to a kidnapping thinly disguised as a road trip, a reconnaissance mission involving the rescue of a Nintendo 64 to a daughter's long ride home after her release from rehab. The result is an unsettling montage that gradually reveals the scabrous force of words left unsaid while illuminating the delicate interplay between intention and morality, capturing the essence of middle America and the myriad paths which cross its surface.
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