Neil LaBute

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Neil LaBute, 2010

Neil LaBute (born March 19, 1963 in Detroit , Michigan ) is an American director , writer and playwright .

Life

LaBute was born in Detroit, Michigan and raised in Spokane , Washington. He studied drama at Brigham Young University (BYU), where he joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . At BYU he met the actor Aaron Eckhart , who then played many leading roles in his films. At BYU he also produced a number of pieces that went to the limit of what was allowed at the strict Mormon University, some of which were canceled immediately after the premiere. LaBute completed his thesis at the University of Kansas , New York University and the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

In 1993, he returned to Brigham Young University to premiere In the Company of Men , for which he received an award from the Association for Mormon Letters . He then taught drama and film at the IPFW in Fort Wayne ( Indiana ) in the early 1990s , where he adapted and filmed the play, which began his career as a director. The film won the Filmmakers Trophy at the Sundance Film Festival and major awards or nominations at the Deauville Film Festival , the Independent Spirit Awards , the Thessaloniki Film Festival, and also the Society of Texas Film Critics Awards and the New York Film Critics Circle . The film's critical and distant attitude towards the Mormon Church led to disapproval from local church leaders and to the termination of LaBute's membership (preliminary stage of excommunication ). He has formally left the Church since then.

LaBute has received high praise from critics for its troubling depictions of human relationships. In the Company of Men he portrayed two misogynist businessmen (one played by Eckhart) who in a cruel conspiracy upset a deaf woman and then destroy it emotionally. His next film, Your Friends & Neighbors (1998), starring Eckhart and Ben Stiller among others, was a shocking portrait of the love life of three suburban couples who were friends.

In 2000, he wrote and directed an off-Broadway play called bash: Pieces of the Last Days , a compilation of three short plays that essentially describe good people (who are Mormons ) doing troubling and violent things. In one of the plays there was a much quoted appearance by Calista Flockhart in the role of a man.

In the piece The Shape of Things he gains new sides from the Pygmalion material : woman forms man, man falls in love with woman, but in the end they don't come together. The piece explores the question of how far people are willing to allow themselves to be manipulated. What a person is ready to give for a perfectly dosed handful of love. And which is better: a pretty illusion or the cruel truth.

The 2002 play The Mercy Seat was one of the first major theatrical responses to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States . Dated September 12, the play is about a man who worked in the World Trade Center but stayed away from his office on the day of the attack - his lover. (Reportedly, the play was inspired by a modern day saga .) Knowing that his family will believe he was killed in the collapse of the towers, he considers the possibility of using the tragedy to tell of his wife and his Running away from children and starting a new life with one's loved one. The main roles on Broadway were played by Liev Schreiber and Sigourney Weaver . The play was a significant commercial success.

Filmography

theatre

  • Lepers
  • Rounder
  • Ravages
  • Sanguinarians & Sycophants
  • Dracula
  • Woyzeck
  • Filthy Talk For Troubled Times (1989)
  • In the Company of Men (1992)
  • Trilogy Bash: Latter-Day Plays (German Bash: Pieces of the Last Days ) (1999)
  • The Shape of Things (dt. The Shape of Things ) (premiere: May 24, 2001 Almeida Theater , London, directed by Neil LaBute)
  • The Mercy Seat (dt. Day of grace ) (2002)
  • The Distance From Here (dt. Far from here ) (2002)
  • Land of the Dead (dt. Land of the Dead , 2002, world premiere on 11 September 2002 in New York as part of the Brave New World Event )
  • Merge (2003)
  • Motorway (2003)
  • Fat Pig (dt. Fat Pig ) (2004)
  • Some Girl (s) (2005)
  • This Is How It Goes (2005) (German how it goes , Austrian premiere on December 6, 2007 in the Theater in der Josefstadt )
  • Wrecks (2006)
  • In a Dark Dark House (2007) (German In a dark house , German premiere April 30, 2010, Stadttheater Konstanz , production: Wulf Twiehaus )
  • The Great War (2008)
  • Reasons to be Pretty (2008) (dt. Dear nice ); European premiere: September 17th, 2010 in the Burgtheater im Kasino , Vienna
  • The Break of Noon (2010) (German at lunchtime , German premiere: October 8, 2011 in the Residenztheater Munich )
  • In a Forest, Dark and Deep (2011) (Eng. In a deep, dark forest , 2012 at the Theater Bonn , main role: Birte Schrein ( Betty ), director: Michael Lippold)

Radio plays

literature

  • Christopher WE Bigsby: Neil LaBute: stage and cinema , Cambridge [u. a.]: Cambridge University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-521-88254-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rosalynde Welch: An Interview with Neil LaBute. In: Times and Seasons. January 19, 2005, accessed January 23, 2018 .
  2. ↑ KulturSPIEGEL 9/2002: I'm used to hate (accessed on June 30, 2014)
  3. ^ FAZ of September 23, 2010, page 34: Bruchland Amerika
  4. ↑ birte-schrein.de: selection of roles (Schauspiel Bonn) (accessed on June 30, 2014)
personal data
SURNAME LaBute, Neil
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American director, writer, and playwright
DATE OF BIRTH March 19, 1963
PLACE OF BIRTH Detroit , Michigan , United States