If there’s one modern playwright who has captured how very vile we humans can be to one another, it would be Neil LaBute.  His ability to say the words we’re not supposed to say in public make his material both electrifying and horrifying.
            (His feature-film directorial debut In the Company of Men, for instance, follows two misogynist men who set out exact revenge on women by setting out to emotionally eviscerate a deaf secretary.)
            Fat Pig is really no different, all the way from its confrontational title.  What sets the play apart is a rare (for LaBute anyway) tenderness for the main character Helen, a tenderness that makes the play all the more heartbreaking.
            When Tom (Skye Brandon) meets Helen (Carlye Windsor) in a crowded lunch spot, he is extremely taken with her.  The ease with which she carries herself and her sense of humour—even after he puts his foot in his mouth a couple of times—dazzle him into asking her to dinner.
            But with LaBute at the helm, you know this isn’t going to be a simple love story.  The problem is that Tom finds himself divided.  See, Helen is a large woman, and while Tom falls deeply in love with her, he has his co-worker Carter (Jesse Gervais) and his ex-date-mate Jeannie (Lora Brovold) saying all kinds of malicious things about the relationship, about Helen.
            And that’s a point that’s been niggling at Windsor, in her Northern Light Theatre debut, about the play.
            “In a lot of the play, things that are said when I am not in the room, and people are nice to me, to my face and then the next minute it’s, ‘you know, she’s a cow!’” Windsor says.  “A lot of people will go into the show and be so shocked by it.  And they’ll be, like, ‘I can’t believe that they would do that behind her back!’
            “But that kind of thing we all do, and that’s what should shock us more.”
            It’s this kind of observation—the unsavoury things we all do—that helps LaBute’s work get under your skin.  And for Windsor, it’s the honesty LaBute writes with that makes her role as Helen both a blessing and a curse to play.
            “The character is so much like me.  In a way, it makes it easy because I can relate to her.  I understand the things she says, and the jokes she makes are a lot of the same I make in everyday life,” Windsor explains.  “And it’s a coping mechanism, in a way—knowing who you are and knowing how some people see you, and you just deal with it.”
            “But it makes it difficult, because she is so much like me, and you’re forced to deal with those—how do I say it?—you’re face-to-face with some of those things in yourself.  And you’re face-to-face with the coping mechanism,” she continues.  “It’s kind of one of those things that you always know is there, but it’s easier to pass it off and be just, like, ‘oh, whatever.’  But in this kind of instance, I have to deal with it now.”
            There’s little doubt that with Fat Pig, LaBute will force a bit of introspection in anybody who watches.  Not only is it a little like watching car accident happen, it also puts our madness with body image into stark relief.
            “You can’t help but you see people and make quick judgments.  Or you see two people together and think, ‘oh, why are they together?  Like, he’s obviously way better than her.’ Or, ‘they’re on two completely different levels.’ We all do it,” Windsor says.  “That’s what can make a show like this so shocking.  But I thing that LaBute has captured the truth, the essence of truth in this, and that involves tenderness and comedy and harsh worlds and all of that put together to create this beautiful piece of work.”

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