Guys who date and shamelessly dump woman after woman are regularly called womanizers, jerks and players. However, no one really thinks to consider their side of the story ““ until now.
One of these supposed jerks is “Guy,” the main character of Neil LaBute’s play “Some Girl(s),” which opens at the Audrey Skirball Theater at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood tonight.
Mark Feuerstein, who has had roles in the movies “What Women Want” and “In Her Shoes,” plays Guy. He describes his character as a sympathetic role:
“He’s a guy who, when he found a better offer, when he was sick of what he had been with, just moved on. He just hops from better opportunity to better opportunity. As he says toward the end of the play, something like, “˜Does it make me some bad guy because I continued to search, to reach out for my own happiness in a profoundly human way?'”
The play follows Guy as he goes back to visit women he dated in the past, before he gets married to a woman he thinks is the perfect catch.
“The ones that we see are everything from ex-girlfriend, to the girl who got away, to a wild, artistic girl that he knew in grad school and someone he had a fling with when he was a teacher,” said Neil LaBute, the play’s writer and director. “It’s a wide range of people. He goes back to see them, to catch up with them and see where they’re at, how they feel about him, and ultimately he has some ulterior motives as well, we find out along the way.”
Known for plays that often deal with a battle of the sexes, LaBute admits that “Some Girl(s)” certainly follows that mold, and may even be a prototype for it.
“It’s a pretty good moxie match anyway,” said LaBute.
Such a topic is certainly controversial, and Feuerstein explained that LaBute is able to convey these dynamics between men and women more honestly than most.
“He deals with the dark underbelly of sexual politics. And for some reason, every guy, when they walk away from a Neil LaBute play, says “˜He shared the dark secret of what I think and how I feel and how I operate: the darkest, darkest truth about how certain men feel and how certain men act, that maybe we’re not supposed to share,'” Feuerstein explained.
The women that Guy visits from his past are stereotypes that a good majority of men have dated at some point in their bachelorhood, and his life journey is typical of the average “guy”’ in today’s world. Although Guy may be ordinary, many men may be hesitant to admit similarities between themselves and the character.
“I have to wonder, what is it going to say about me if I say, “˜Yes, Guy is a character I can relate to,'” said Feuerstein. “Saying “˜yes’ to that question might load me up with his baggage. And I might not be so excited to have … to be associated with that.”
As the writer and director of “Some Girl(s),” LaBute has no choice but to be associated with Guy. Though sometimes he assumes only the role of either writer or director, in this case LaBute has no one else to credit for Guy’s blunt honesty and the truths revealed about the dynamics between men and women in his play.
“Even when you’re a writer alone, and somebody else has directed this, I have someone else to blame. There’s another layer, there’s someone else’s ideas. Right now, I’m standing a little more nakedly behind what I wrote, and I directed it. So you do it in a more public fashion than when you’re just writing at home in your notebook,” LaBute said.
Feuerstein knows a thing or two about varying professions, as well. He considered becoming a lawyer when he first enrolled at Princeton University. But his college experience changed his mind; Feuerstein auditioned for a play and, like his character Guy, left one thing for another.
“I definitely would be sitting right now in some law office staring out at freezing cold New York working on a contract for some corporate merger or something,” he said. “I’m so grateful to be standing here in the sun waiting for rehearsal on this awesome play.”