In an era dominated by PR and the attainment of physical perfection, Marius von Mayenburg's pacey four-hander slashes across the cult of beauty and lifts the concept of identity to the flourescent glare.
Designer Richard Matthews has crafted a Godot-like, monochrome, minimal set of over-exaggerated perspective. Through an electronic fog of white noise, strip lights punctuate a ceiling-grid of white rope. Beneath the harsh glare, fabric panels - stitched in a mosaic of seams - stretch down a corridor which flexes between the environs of a component factory and a hospital. The effect is one of a shattered mirror, a mesh of windows or a web of bandages.
Like the set, the work plays with powerful contrasts. The play opens when Lette (a gifted engineer) is to be excluded by Scheffler (his boss) - in favour of Karlmann (his junior and a much younger man) - from fronting his own invention at a sales convention. This leads Lette to confront the harsh realization - in the words of Fanny, his own beautiful wife, that he is 'unspeakably ugly'.
Sensing the demise of his career, Lette opts for transformative surgery at the hands of a second Scheffler - a materialistic plastic surgeon. Von Mayenburg plays with the unforseen consequences of this operation, as Lette revives to discover he has become physically irresistible.
The naturalistic, and comedic dialogue of the work leads to an initial delusion of accessibility. As the play unfolds, the audience is moved imaginitely through a series of increasingly demanding levels: actors take on and switch between their primary and secondary characters without devices of set, prop or costume to orientate them.
The technique builds incredible pace, as interacting characters switch more rapidly - often mid-gesture, to comedic effect. This is achieved with greater proficiency by Hastings, Marsden and Pryal in the characters of Lette, Fanny and Karlmann.
The play is both powerful and thought-provoking, both because of and in spite of its unexpectedly happy ending.
The Ugly One runs at Norwich Playhouse until 6th June 2009.
Tickets £12 available here.
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