Theatre: Fat Pig

By Neil La Bute

Red Ryder Productions

Directed by Emily McLean

Designed by Fiona Bruce

Sound and lighting design by Joe Lui

with Alicia Osyka, Brendan Ewing, Georgia King and Will O’Mahony

The Blue Room

Until June 8

A man and a woman find themselves side-by-side at a lunch counter. Tom (Brendan Ewing) is tall and handsome; Helen (Alicia Osyka) is short and dumpy. Click. It’s pretty much a love at first sight. But can it survive?
Fat Pig, the American playwright Neil La Bute’s 2004 hit about one of the most pernicious of society’s prejudices, that thin is better than fat, is a success, if not an unmitigated one.
Helen is a smart, eccentric, and very forthright, librarian. We’d call her bubbly. Tom is a rising young executive in a colleagues-with-benefits relationship with Jeannie (Georgia King), a sharp, self-assured accountant at his firm.
Tom’s workmate Carter (Will O’Mahoney) has organised office drinks on Friday night, but when Tom begs out because he’s having dinner with “the Sydney office guys”, Carter is curious, and Jeannie suspicious.
Ewing is an actor who consistently finds a way to integrate the characters he plays with his own unmistakeable personality, while O’Mahoney has an ability to find the instantly recognisable in his. They are both terrific in this.
I’ve got the utmost regard for both King and Osyka, but felt they were a little less convincing here. Despite this, Fat Pig is a production with a lot to recommend it and important things to say.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian