The Way We Get By - ePublication
THE STORY: Meet Beth and Doug, two people who have no problems getting dates with their partners of choice. After a drunken party and a hot night, they wake up to a blurry morning where the rules of attraction, sex, and society are waiting for them before their first cup of coffee. It’s very awkward—and it also leads the pair to ponder how much they really know about each other, and how much they really care about what other people think. THE WAY WE GET BY is a play about love and lust and the whole damn thing.
“[LaBute] has done something unique to his brand of well-established playwriting genre; that is of the darkly cynical variety. THE WAY WE GET BY is a good play with an important conundrum (which I won’t ruin for you), with a positive and hopeful ending, (that much I will ruin for you). It actually feels good in our ever wary world to see that problems, no matter how challenging, can be worked out and realized without the usual, ‘Maybe I should have slit my wrists long ago,’ attitudes of characters with complex lives. After all, everything is complex these days.” —Huffington Post.
“…sexy…[LaBute] relishes the art of thwarting expectations.” —The New York Times.
“One-night stands often produce repercussions, but few are as emotionally fraught as the one depicted in Neil LaBute’s [THE WAY WE GET BY]…the playwright’s gift for amusing banter is very much on display.” —The Hollywood Reporter.
“[LaBute’s] sometimes brutal wit has long been accompanied by an equally fierce moral curiosity…if we see Doug and Beth’s struggle in the context of a world where everyone can seem to be in everyone else’s business—especially when it’s trivial—the focus is on two individuals trying to assess their own capacity for courage.” —USA Today.
