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The narrator of Ovation Theatre Company's current production, Neil LaBute's This Is How It Goes, is very upfront. In the opening minutes, he nervously confesses, "I may end up being an unreliable narrator."
That's a warning audiences should heed in watching this talkative young man (Michael Monks) who frames, comments on and participates in a story about high school acquaintances reconnecting after a dozen years.
Belinda Phipps (Jennifer Owen) was a cheerleader back then; Cody Phipps (Jeff Carpenter) was a standout athlete. In "a smallish town in the Midwest" they turned a lot of heads when they began dating and even more when they married — Belinda is blonde and white, and Cody is black.
They've had two kids, and the magic seems to have evaporated from their marriage. Enter the narrator (never named), a self-confessed "dork" in high school who has lost weight, served in the military and earned a law degree. He's also been discharged and lost his job as an attorney, so there's clearly something going on.
But it's hard to pin down what that is. Watching him tell the story is like watching him play Wii, using avatars to do his bidding. With his hand on the controller, he tells a version of the story and then says he's embroidered it as he envisions it. So we see it again, through another character — but he's still filtering.
Is Belinda as innocent and nervous as when he first meets her? Is Cody the surly guy with a chip on his shoulder or a loving husband whose demanding wife has made him miserable?
"Please do not forget the truth," the narrator warns. But we get so many versions of "how it goes" that it's impossible to know what’s true and what's fabricated.
We learn that the narrator is an aspiring playwright. What we're watching is a script premised on his recent experiences. More fiction, or a transcript of events?
As one comes to expect when the words are written by LaBute (whose works of misogyny include the play Fat Pig and the film In the Company of Men), some of This Is How It Goes is offensive: The narrator seems to be a thinly veiled racist who makes horrifyingly inappropriate jokes, then defends them as "just jokes" or he "rewrites" the scene, claiming that of course he didn’t really say that. But in the course of 100 minutes, he evokes at least a half-dozen gasps from the audience with his remarks.
Owen and Carpenter handle their roles believably. Carpenter's simmering anger rings true (at least when it's happening) and Owen's vulnerability feels earnest, as does her bitchiness when that's a quality the narrator is describing. But Monks' narrator is the character who will rivet your attention: He's charming and shocking, engaging and repellent all at the same time. It's a role you won't soon forget.
This Is How It Goes is about manipulation — analogies to Iago's duping of gullible Othello are intended (the narrator makes the connection in case we missed it) — but the audience is who is truly duped. The moment you think you see where this show is headed, you're probably wrong.
Director Alana Ghent has staged this "bute" of a script in the round, another disorientation as the actors keep moving and turning to be visible to the surrounding audience. And it works: This is one of Ovation's best-ever productions.
Critic's Pick
THIS IS HOW IT GOES, presented by Ovation Theatre Company, continues through April 26 at the Aronoff Center’s Fifth Third Bank Theater downtown. Buy tickets, check out performance times and find nearby bars and restaurants here.
