'SHAPE' MAKES A FURIOUS DEBUT.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

IN A DIFFERENT climate, and perhaps from the keyboard of a different writer, a play like ``The Shape of Things'' might have turned out to be a hot-button perennial like David Mamet's ``Oleanna'' or, now, Edward Albee's ``The Goat.'' This is the kind of play that theaters could program as much for the ease of producing as for the delight of sending audiences to the lobby in gender-divided battle mode.

``The Shape of Things'' may yet have such a future. The play is barely 4 years old. Yet for some idiotic reason, it's taken this long to bring a production of the minimally demanding, four-character play (which was also a movie) to Los Angeles. Pasadena's Furious Theatre Company has rectified the omission with a smart if not overly daring staging of Neil LaBute's ``Shape'' at the Playhouse Balcony Theatre.

Yes, that Neil LaBute, the writer/director of films like ``In the Company of Men'' ``Your Friends and Neighbors'' and the plays ``Bash'' and his current ``Fat Pig.'' The same LaBute who is routinely branded as misogynistic. Others contend the author just plain dislikes people regardless of whether they carry a Y chromosome. There's some LaBute-ian nasty behavior in ``Shape,'' but it's by no means an ugly play.

The engine of ``The Shape of Things'' is indeed a woman, a 25-year-old art graduate student named Evelyn (played by Vonessa Martin) who begins the play shaking a can of spray paint as she prepares to deface a museum statue. A nerdy security guard named Adam comes over to intervene. He can't stop Evelyn from letting the paint fly - the act is, to Evelyn, a stand for truth - but he gets her phone number.

Under Evelyn's guidance, Adam begins to change: He loses weight, dresses more smartly and ditches his glasses. The influence is noted by Adam's former roommate, Philip (Shawn Lee), and his fiancee, Jenny (Sara Hennessy), who was Adam's unrequited flame. New look also means new behavior. Truth and subjectiveness of love, behavior and art are called richly into question.

Evelyn's a tricky role. Martin plays her largely with an offhanded coolness, refusing to let even a shred of doubt seep into the character, particularly during LaBute's ingenious climactic scene. There's a lot of steel in Martin's performance, but the point comes through more persuasively - and the sexual equation strikes a tighter balance - if Evelyn comes off as slightly less in command.

Price's Adam, on the flip side, is consistently sympathetic and personable and maybe he shouldn't be. The transformation from self-contented geek to possibly duplicitous hottie is smooth and believable; Sara Hennessy's costumes and Price's quickly altered posture, hair and mannerisms bring it off. Price and director Damaso Rodriguez might also rethink the decision for Adam to stuff his face with cookies throughout the play's final scene with Evelyn. Those probably aren't the laughs you want.

All the same, ``The Shape of Things'' is blisteringly good entertainment. Returnees could benefit from a second viewing during which seemingly throwaway lines would come across in an entirely different light. Love 'em or hate 'em, LaBute's plays have a fascination and there's nothing subjective about that.

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

THE SHAPE OF THINGS - Three and one half stars

Where: Furious Theatre Company at Playhouse Balcony Theatre, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena.

When: 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 7:30 p.m. Sunday; through Feb. 20.

Tickets: $15 to $24. Call [phone] or visit www.furioustheatre.org.

In a nutshell: When love, art and truth collide. Bad-behavior guru Neil LaBute causes the collision.