Offense Taken; ‘Fat Pig,’ Its Playwright Don’t Shrink From a Topic That Makes People Uncomfortable
By DAMIEN JAQUES
“Fat Pig.”
Some people can’t get past the title of Neil LaBute’s corrosive drama about a promising romance destroyed by cultural attitudes toward physical appearance. They are offended.
That does not bother the provocative playwright. No one writing for the stage or screen — LaBute does both — probes taboos and sensitive subjects with his uncompromising nerve. While society tiptoes around uncomfortable truths, the 44-year-old writer slaps us in the face with them.
Renaissance Theaterworks mounted LaBute’s “The Shape of Things” four years ago. That piece examined the unbalanced relationship between a manipulative female graduate student and a cowed undergraduate male seduced into submission.
It was an unsettling slice-of-life drama that is played out in the real world more often than we probably want to admit.
On Friday, Renaissance opens its production of “Fat Pig,” a tougher and better observation of relationship pain.
The title character is an engaging, unmarried 30-ish woman who is significantly overweight. When a trim single guy sets his cafeteria tray down next to her at lunch one day, a conversation develops. That leads to a few low-key dates and budding affection, maybe even love.
But the man is embarrassed to be seen in public with his new lover, and his reluctance is stoked by his smirking office co- workers, who ridicule the idea of a fit fellow with a plus-sized mate building a corporate career. Their judgment ultimately dooms the romance.
Although “Fat Pig” is the rude title, the play is really about a male who’s missing a backbone. He needs a sense of self strong enough to resist the critical opinion of others.
A strong sense of self is also important in the actress who portrays the drama’s obese woman. She must literally be comfortable in her skin, to the point of appearing in a swimming suit at a crucial point in the show.
Enter Tanya Saracho, a Chicago actress eager to discuss the delicate topic of being a big woman in a play that is often indelicate about weight. “When does a chubby girl get to be the romantic lead?” she rhetorically asks.
Saracho has weighed as much as 287 pounds, and she now weighs 230 only because of her father’s and her own concerns about her future health. The actress’ goal is to reach 200 pounds. She suggests that being heavy is an attitudinal condition as well as a physical one.
A native of Sinaloa, Mexico, Saracho is co-founder and co- artistic director of Teatro Luna, a Latina women’s stage company in Chicago. For one of its productions, the troupe used as scenery a 10- foot-tall photo of a naked Saracho and her equally unclothed Teatro Luna colleagues. She has been pushing “Fat Pig” director Susan Fete to allow her to show more skin in the Renaissance production.
“There was a time I didn’t fit into an airline seat and I needed a seat belt extension,” she said. “But I have never had trouble getting cute boyfriends. I was the fattest kid in middle school, and I don’t know how I got elected president of the student council.
“I know in my head I will never be thin. That Tanya doesn’t exist.”
Saracho views the weight issue in “Fat Pig” in the larger context of negatively categorizing and marginalizing groups vulnerable to demonization. “It could be immigrant pig or black pig,” she said.
“The play is messing with my head. If you believe you are the other, then you are it.”
Joining the conversation, director Fete said, “The play is about Tom (the male half of the couple) and his opportunity to become a bigger person, a better person.
“The tragedy is that for the first two-thirds of the play, he is trying so hard. But he bows to what other people think about his choice, and it is people he doesn’t even respect.”
Dramatist LaBute, who has struggled with his own waistline, has explained that “Fat Pig”"deals with human weakness and the difficulty many people face when trying to stand up for, live up to, or come out for something they believe in.” The quote is taken from the prelude to the published edition of the play, and LaBute is not referring to a weakness for french fries or hot fudge sundaes.
“And that’s pretty much me in a nutshell,” he continues. “Well- meaning as can be, but surprisingly lame when push comes to shove. Heroism, it would seem, is a tough gig.”
Saracho and her cast mates have been sampling the Historic Third Ward’s night spots after rehearsals, and as they meet people and explain that they are acting in a play titled “Fat Pig,” she has announced, “I am the fat pig. Come and see it.” Her colleagues have told the actress that she is making people uncomfortable.
LaBute would be delighted.
IF YOU GO
What: Renaissance Theaterworks’ “Fat Pig”
When: Opens 8 p.m. Friday; through May 18
Where: Broadway Theatre Center, 158 N. Broadway
Tickets: $28; call (414) 291-7800 or visit www.r-t-w.com
NOTABLE FILM WORK BY NEIL LABUTE
“The Shape of Things,” with Rachel Weisz and Paul Rudd; LaBute wrote and directed
“Possession,” with Gwyneth Paltrow and Aaron Eckhart; he adapted from the A.S. Byatt novel and directed
“Nurse Betty,” with Renee Zellweger and Morgan Freeman; he directed
E-mail: djaques@journalsentinel.com
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