Review: Judith Light Intrigues In Neil LaBute's ALL THE WAYS TO SAY I LOVE YOU

Given the basket of deplorables that have populated the oeuvre of playwright Neil LaBute, it should be of little surprise that the storyteller of his new solo play, ALL THE WAYS TO SAY I LOVE YOU, is a rapist, liar and adulterer who spends the hour-long performance playing the victim card.

To be fair, the rapist label would be argued by some and may not apply everywhere, as the student that the high school teacher had an ongoing sexual relationship with was a second year senior, presumably a legal adult, although being his guidance counselor put her in a position of authority.

Under the direction of Leigh Silverman, Judith Light, one of the strongest and most interesting actors currently gracing New York stages, is thoroughly convincing as Mrs. Johnson, a woman whose passion for teaching English may be the reason for the slightly elevated tone of LaBute's language and the character's diction.

You might say Johnson sees herself as the heroine of a classic romance novel, enduring a marriage with a husband, Eric, who is loving, but who she finds sexually uninspiring.

When describing the affair, which she sees as beneficial to both herself and her student, Tommy, Light allows varying degrees of lust to break through the cracks of her character's prim façade, as though Johnson denies control of her actions.

Of course, we're only getting one side of the story, and LaBute drops in details, including the racial backgrounds of Tommy and Eric, that may have more pronounced meanings from the student's narrative.

The choice to set the play set within the safety and comfort of Mrs. Johnson's classroom ultimately saps the piece of potential tension, as there is no indication of a particular person she's speaking to or a particular reason she's telling the tale.

Thus ALL THE WAYS TO SAY I LOVE YOU, while certainly accomplished, doesn't quite deliver the emotional impact its scenario is capable of producing. Light, however, is thoroughly in command and always intriguing.