Two Brothers and a Molester

Neil LaBute is not a good Mormon. In college at Brigham Young University, he was given the superlative of “most promising undergraduate playwright.” The Mormon university probably didn’t expect him to run off and write a play about misogynistic businessmen abusing a deaf woman, or another play about a ring of debauched, murderous Mormons. The church excommunicated him for that.

He’s continued making disturbing plays. Powerhouse director Richard Jay Simon has brought LaBute’s latest nightmare, In a Dark Dark House, to Florida. It’s about two brothers’ legacy of sexual abuse. Terry, one of the brothers, is a lawyer confined to a mental institution after driving drugged up and drunk. His brother, Drew, comes to see him in the nuthouse. Terry asks him for a favor: he needs Drew to verify that an adult male friend of theirs molested Terry when he was 12, and that the trauma contributed to his recent breakdown. When the twisted adolescent memories come out of the family time capsule, things turn ugly. This is a LaBute play, after all, so prepare for discomfiting plot twists.

In a Dark Dark House casts its shadow on the Mosaic Theatre (12200 W. Broward Blvd., Plantation) Thursdays through Sundays until June 21. Tickets cost $35 or less. Call 954-577-8243, or visit mosaictheatre.com.
Thursdays-Sundays. Starts: May 28. Continues through June 21, 2009