Profile Theatre’s A Behanding in Spokane was thrilling and discomfiting, but also empty and hopeless. Staged like a particularly well-executed playwriting exercise, we begin truly in media res, as a one-handed man shoots into a closet, calls his mother, and opens the door to let in a frantic young woman waving a dessicated human hand. What. is up. Here’s an excerpt of my play review:

Thad Hallstein’s set is so spot-on, it looks like he picked up the dingiest motel room he could find and put it down in the middle of the theater. Such a room requires a mood as bleak, and Cox sets the tone with his cruel, efficient treatment of Marilyn and Toby, and his singular focus on getting back what is rightfully his.

You can read the rest here.

I’ve never seen a Profiles show before, and while I enjoyed this show somewhat (I think the review came off more positive than I intended, oops), I’m not sure I’ll be back. They have produced just about every Neil La Bute play ever written, and I’m not super interested in supporting a theater that’s that obsessed with putting on La Bute’s misanthropic, sexist, would-be Mametism.