'The Beautiful People,' a new play by Tim Venable produced by Rogue Machine at the Matrix Theatre, is about two high school boys who have a sleepover on the eve of a school shooting that forever changed the course of American life.
“The Beautiful People,” a new play by Tim Venable produced by Rogue Machine at the Matrix Theatre, takes place in the basement where two high school boys are having a sleepover on the eve of a school shooting that forever changed the course of American life.
Venable’s focus is on masculinity. “The Beautiful People,” which is also the title of a Manson song, traps us in this basement with the aggression, antagonism, vulnerability and sexual frustration of these young men. Preston’s character, smarter, wealthier and a good deal more sensitive, is introverted to the point of being self-negating. He confesses that he’s never kissed a girl before. Neher’s character boasts that he’s done more than kiss, but he’s insecure about his gawky body and it’s clear that he hasn’t had much success with the opposite sex either.
“The Beautiful People” doesn’t have the same laconic breeziness, but it’s in no hurry to reach a climax. Adolescent behavior is placed under the spotlight for collective scrutiny. If the press materials hadn’t made clear that this was a play about school shooters, I might have thought we were in a verité drama about lost young men clinging to each other for survival.
It’s as if Venable started to write a play about the Columbine killers and then decided to erase his tracks, not wanting to be bogged down in historical particulars of a phenomenon that has become dangerously prevalent in American society. The goal is perhaps to offer a more probing analysis of the shooters’ injured male identities, but the playwriting strategy is only partially effective.
Dylan, desperate for approval even if it comes at the cost of being Eric’s punching bag, glows when Eric praises the story he’s written about a vengeful killing spree. Yet his destructive impulse is inwardly directed. It’s Eric’s outward aggression that ushers Dylan away from the ever-present lure of suicide.
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