This Is How It Goes A Play

Belinda and Cody Phippsappeara typical Midwestern couple: teenage sweethearts, children, luxurious home. Typical except that Cody is black--"rich, black, and different," in the words of Belinda, who finds herself attracted to a former (white) classmate. As the battle for her affections is waged, Belinda and Cody frankly doubt the foundation of their initial attraction, opening the door wide to a swath of bigotry and betrayal. Staged on continually shifting moral ground that challenges our received notions about gender, ethnicity, and even love itself,This Is How It Goesunblinkingly explores the myriad ways in which the wild card of race is played by both black and white in America. Neil LaButeis a critically acclaimed writer-director for both the stage and screen. His works include the playsThe Distance from Hereandbash: latterday playsand the filmsIn the Company of Men,Your Friends and Neighbors,Nurse Betty, andPossession, as well as the play and film adaptation ofThe Shapes of Things. Challenging received notions of gender, ethnicity, morality, and even love,This Is How It Goesunblinkingly explores the wild card of race in Americaas played by both blacks and whites. This new drama gives us LaBute's "most sophisticatedly structured and emotionally complex story yet . . . A taut firecracker of a play about an interracial love triangle that may do for liberal racism what David Mamet'sOleannadid for sexual harassment" (Time Out New York). "Seldom has [LaBute's] heart expressed itself as ambitiously or compellingly as it does inThis Is How It Goes, the most frank, fearless look at race relations from a white dramatist since Rebecca Gilman'sSpinning into Butter."USA Today "Seldom has [LaBute's] heart expressed itself as ambitiously or compellingly as it does inThis Is How It Goes, the most frank, fearless look at race relations from a white dramatist since Rebecca Gilman'sSpinning into Butter."USA Today "LaBute . . . continues to probe the fascinating dark side of individualism . . . [His] great gift is to live and to chronicle that murky area of not-knowing, which mankind spends much of its waking life denying."John Lahr,The New Yorker "Neil LaBute is the first dramatist since David Mamet and Sam Shepardsince Edward Albee, actuallyto mix sympathy and savagery, pathos and power."Donald Lyons,New York Post "LaBute [is] our Amrican Aesop, a mad moral fabulist serving stiff tonic for our country's sin-sick souls."John Istel,American Theatre "Like a chiropractor of the soul, LaBute for realignment, listening for a crack."John Istel,Elle

Neil LaBute is a playwright, filmmaker, and fiction writer. His most recent work for the stage is The Distance from Here, which premiered Off Broadway in 2004.

This Is How It Goes
CharactersWAITRESS A woman in her twentiesCopyright © 2005 by Neil LaBute All rights reserved