Neil LaBute's characters like to talk. They like to tell each other their deepest, darkest secrets. Many people will recognize LaBute's name from the movies In The Company Of Men and Your Friends and Neighbors, both of which he wrote and directed. In both films, the characters' actions are almost as shocking as the pleasure they seem to derive in telling their stories.
Two of the three vignettes that comprise Bash are monologues. With transfixing performances by Louise Lamson, Kyle Hall, and especially Armando Riesco and Lisa Velten, the actors transcend the material which occasionally borders on shock value. Their characters may have committed monstrous acts, but it is their humanity that ultimately earns them the compassion of the audience.
In the first vignette, a young woman ( Lamson ) is seated at a table in an interrogation room. She is an "inward kind of person" who was "never the queen of education." At 13, one of her teachers made a pass at her and she began a sexual relationship with him that culminated in her becoming pregnant around the time of her 14th birthday. Shortly after her birthday, the teacher left town. When her son, Billy, reached the age of 14, a meeting was arranged with his father, her former teacher, in Arizona. The event that occurred following the meeting, the reason the young woman was being questioned, was horrible enough to elicit an audible sound of shock from the audience. Sitting in front of the mirrored glass of the interrogation room and smoking three cigarettes during the course of her confession, the reflection of the smoke dancing in the mirror, the woman unflinchingly revealed her tale without conscious use of smoke and mirrors.
The second vignette, in which a handsome and self-assured businessman ( Hall ) invites a stranger that he met at a hotel bar back to his room to confess his sins, takes longer to get to its dark revelation. In fact, it will probably come as no surprise to learn that this character played a part in what was ruled the accidental death of his infant daughter. The real twist and surprise comes when we learn of his misguided motivation.
The third and final, and most deeply disturbing, of the three scenes involves a couple of college sweethearts, John and Sue ( Riesco and Velten, respectively ) , in Manhattan with friends from Boston College for the weekend to attend a bash. Young, clean-cut and all dressed up in their formal wear, John and Sue's experience of the weekend turns out to be vastly different. John and his friends gay-bash a man in a men's room in Central Park. Sue remains innocent of John's violent and lethal actions, because she is asleep when it happens and because John lies to protect her. The word "bash" takes on another, more horrifying, meaning altogether.
Bash is 90 minutes long and not for the faint of heart. However, if you want to take a look into the dark night of four souls, Bash allows you to do so and not leave with blood on your hands.