What do you think?
How to Fight Loneliness: A Play
Brad and Jodie need Tate to do them a favor. A really big favor. Brad is married to Jodie. Jodie went to school with Tate. Tate doesn’t trust Brad. Brad and Jodie are at a life-changing crossroads and struggling to make a monumental decision about their life and love, and Tate―just maybe―has been there before. In this timely, dark, and dazzling new play, Neil LaBute takes a penetrating, point-blank look at a couple confronting the hardest decision of their lives and the aftermath of that decision. In How To Fight Loneliness, Neil LaBute has written perhaps his most shocking, and also most tender, play yet.
- GenresPlays
112 pages, Paperback
Published August 15, 2017
About the author
Neil LaBute
88 books122 followersNeil LaBute is an American film director, screenwriter and playwright.
Born in Detroit, Michigan, LaBute was raised in Spokane, Washington. He studied theater at Brigham Young University (BYU), where he joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. At BYU he also met actor Aaron Eckhart, who would later play leading roles in several of his films. He produced a number of plays that pushed the envelope of what was acceptable at the conservative religious university, some of which were shut down after their premieres. LaBute also did graduate work at the University of Kansas, New York University, and the Royal Academy of London.
In 1993 he returned to Brigham Young University to premier his play In the Company of Men, for which he received an award from the Association for Mormon Letters. He taught drama and film at IPFW in Fort Wayne, Indiana in the early 1990s where he adapted and filmed the play, shot over two weeks and costing $25,000, beginning his career as a film director. The film won the Filmmakers Trophy at the Sundance Film Festival, and major awards and nominations at the Deauville Film Festival, the Independent Spirit Awards, the Thessaloniki Film Festival, the Society of Texas Film Critics Awards and the New York Film Critics Circle.
LaBute has received high praise from critics for his edgy and unsettling portrayals of human relationships. In the Company of Men portrays two misogynist businessmen (one played by Eckhart) cruelly plotting to romance and emotionally destroy a deaf woman. His next film Your Friends & Neighbors (1998), with an ensemble cast including Eckhart and Ben Stiller, was a shockingly honest portrayal of the sex lives of three suburban couples. In 2000 he wrote an off-Broadway play entitled Bash: Latter-Day Plays, a set of three short plays (Iphigenia in orem, A gaggle of saints, and Medea redux) depicting essentially good Latter-day Saints doing disturbing and violent things. One of the plays was a much-talked-about one-person performance by Calista Flockhart. This play resulted in his being disfellowshipped from the LDS Church. He has since formally left the LDS Church.
LaBute's 2002 play The Mercy Seat was one of the first major theatrical responses to the September 11, 2001 attacks. Set on September 12, it concerns a man who worked at the World Trade Center but was away from the office during the attack — with his mistress. Expecting that his family believes that he was killed in the towers' collapse, he contemplates using the tragedy to run away and start a new life with his lover. Starring Liev Schreiber and Sigourney Weaver, the play was a commercial and critical success.
LaBute's latest film is The Wicker Man, an American version of a British cult classic. His first horror film, it starred Nicolas Cage and Ellen Burstyn and was released on September 1, 2006 by Warner Bros. Pictures to scathing critical reviews and mediocre box office.
He is working with producer Gail Mutrux on the screen adaptation of The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff.
Born in Detroit, Michigan, LaBute was raised in Spokane, Washington. He studied theater at Brigham Young University (BYU), where he joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. At BYU he also met actor Aaron Eckhart, who would later play leading roles in several of his films. He produced a number of plays that pushed the envelope of what was acceptable at the conservative religious university, some of which were shut down after their premieres. LaBute also did graduate work at the University of Kansas, New York University, and the Royal Academy of London.
In 1993 he returned to Brigham Young University to premier his play In the Company of Men, for which he received an award from the Association for Mormon Letters. He taught drama and film at IPFW in Fort Wayne, Indiana in the early 1990s where he adapted and filmed the play, shot over two weeks and costing $25,000, beginning his career as a film director. The film won the Filmmakers Trophy at the Sundance Film Festival, and major awards and nominations at the Deauville Film Festival, the Independent Spirit Awards, the Thessaloniki Film Festival, the Society of Texas Film Critics Awards and the New York Film Critics Circle.
LaBute has received high praise from critics for his edgy and unsettling portrayals of human relationships. In the Company of Men portrays two misogynist businessmen (one played by Eckhart) cruelly plotting to romance and emotionally destroy a deaf woman. His next film Your Friends & Neighbors (1998), with an ensemble cast including Eckhart and Ben Stiller, was a shockingly honest portrayal of the sex lives of three suburban couples. In 2000 he wrote an off-Broadway play entitled Bash: Latter-Day Plays, a set of three short plays (Iphigenia in orem, A gaggle of saints, and Medea redux) depicting essentially good Latter-day Saints doing disturbing and violent things. One of the plays was a much-talked-about one-person performance by Calista Flockhart. This play resulted in his being disfellowshipped from the LDS Church. He has since formally left the LDS Church.
LaBute's 2002 play The Mercy Seat was one of the first major theatrical responses to the September 11, 2001 attacks. Set on September 12, it concerns a man who worked at the World Trade Center but was away from the office during the attack — with his mistress. Expecting that his family believes that he was killed in the towers' collapse, he contemplates using the tragedy to run away and start a new life with his lover. Starring Liev Schreiber and Sigourney Weaver, the play was a commercial and critical success.
LaBute's latest film is The Wicker Man, an American version of a British cult classic. His first horror film, it starred Nicolas Cage and Ellen Burstyn and was released on September 1, 2006 by Warner Bros. Pictures to scathing critical reviews and mediocre box office.
He is working with producer Gail Mutrux on the screen adaptation of The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 26, 2025
Note: I watched the play, didn't actually read the playscript, so choosing the 0 page copy so that it affects my stats less :P I don't usually do this, but I've just been back from seeing this one and I wanted to have the opportunity to record my thoughts somewhere (/ slate what is by far the worst play I have seen in my life), so decided to check if there is an entry on Goodreads and yay yes there is! I expected to end up as a total crying wreck from the title and premise, instead I was horrendously infuriated by about 30 minutes in (of a 2hr 30min runtime including an interval) and it got no better. I considered leaving at the interval - usually unheard of as if I've paid to watch something then I am watching it till the end - but changed my mind because I did want to slate it and I don't think its fair to slate something having only seen half (and there is a lot about fairness in this review so I don't want to be a hypocrite!).
Where do I even start with this one? I saw it in Park Theatre, London, where the actors and actress were amazing but that's pretty much where the goodness of it ended. They really brought out the emotions and their body language really shone through, for instance . The story itself was such rubbish though, and the characters were honestly such unlikeable despicable people. I understood the dilemma that each of them were facing, there was so much potential in this one to make it a heart-warming story, instead all we got was endless selfishness and entitlement. I felt for Brad in the first half if I'm honest (more details below), but then things completely turned in the last half hour.
So we open with a scene where Brad and Josie are in their house, waiting for Tate's arrival. The audience isn't told at this point what the deal is, but they are both clearly nervous and sniping at each other. Josie was already driving me mental at this stage, she seemed to have this ridiculous expectation that Brad would magically read her mind and do/say what she wanted him to do/say, despite acknowledging that he did not agree with whatever it is that they were up to but "this is about ME, okay, get this, ME". The actress playing Josie had a close-shaven hairstyle, which led me to guess what her circumstances were, and I was right although it took a very long time to get to this point.
Tate eventually shows up, it was obvious that . After it is revealed what this meeting is about, I did relate to why Brad and Josie were at odds (even though apparently Josie the character did not, because "this is about ME, okay"). I completely understood why . And there was an infuriating tendency of her not wanting to say things the way they are, for instance , apparently wanting to keep up a niceness facade by covering up with lies and half-truths.
What really riled me was when Brad mentioned something along the lines of understanding Josie's perspective, which was met with a "YOU think you understand me? You think you CAN?". At this stage, I did not understand what this lady wanted anymore. She clearly knew what she wanted, that her husband disagreed, and it seemed like all she wanted to do was to force him to agree, yet when he acknowledged that he may not fully understand but that they would end up doing what she wanted in the end anyway, she got angry at that. Man really couldn't win. I honestly think that some of his suggestions were sensible, for instance .
Fast forward to the second half, when the three have apparently agreed that it was happening and had gone into execution phase. . Josie then goes through several back-and-forths of being ready but not ready - again something totally understandable given the circumstances but I hated that once again it was all about her and her and her, she just refused to acknowledge that her indecision and dragging the two guys along with it first one way and then the other was not helping anyone including herself.
Just as I was feeling for Brad though, he undoes all the banked goodwill that I had by this point in the final scene at his house, where . Once again, I could see the rationale: The guys needed to bash things out at some point, but for Brad to turn around and make Tate entirely the bad guy was unfair. I get that he did not agree with the plan, that was clear from the start, but if he hadn't the courage to stand up to his wife instead of the repeated copping out with "just do what you want", then he doesn't really have the right to go around blaming others after the act is done, no? From the husband-wife dynamic portrayed in the frustratingly long first scene it is likely that she would have bulldozed over him and done it anyway, but I'm saying that if he had accepted being bulldozed at the time then it isn't really fair to complain about it afterwards, to a third party notwithstanding.
I don't know what drew me to buying tickets to this, I fully expected to be a total crying wreck at the end of it, but instead I was infuriated pretty much from the first scene and it never changed from there. Kudos to the actress playing Jodie though, her body language was key to inciting this frustration in me. A good premise and a brilliant cast let down by, honestly, stupid storytelling IMO.
Where do I even start with this one? I saw it in Park Theatre, London, where the actors and actress were amazing but that's pretty much where the goodness of it ended. They really brought out the emotions and their body language really shone through, for instance . The story itself was such rubbish though, and the characters were honestly such unlikeable despicable people. I understood the dilemma that each of them were facing, there was so much potential in this one to make it a heart-warming story, instead all we got was endless selfishness and entitlement. I felt for Brad in the first half if I'm honest (more details below), but then things completely turned in the last half hour.
So we open with a scene where Brad and Josie are in their house, waiting for Tate's arrival. The audience isn't told at this point what the deal is, but they are both clearly nervous and sniping at each other. Josie was already driving me mental at this stage, she seemed to have this ridiculous expectation that Brad would magically read her mind and do/say what she wanted him to do/say, despite acknowledging that he did not agree with whatever it is that they were up to but "this is about ME, okay, get this, ME". The actress playing Josie had a close-shaven hairstyle, which led me to guess what her circumstances were, and I was right although it took a very long time to get to this point.
Tate eventually shows up, it was obvious that . After it is revealed what this meeting is about, I did relate to why Brad and Josie were at odds (even though apparently Josie the character did not, because "this is about ME, okay"). I completely understood why . And there was an infuriating tendency of her not wanting to say things the way they are, for instance , apparently wanting to keep up a niceness facade by covering up with lies and half-truths.
What really riled me was when Brad mentioned something along the lines of understanding Josie's perspective, which was met with a "YOU think you understand me? You think you CAN?". At this stage, I did not understand what this lady wanted anymore. She clearly knew what she wanted, that her husband disagreed, and it seemed like all she wanted to do was to force him to agree, yet when he acknowledged that he may not fully understand but that they would end up doing what she wanted in the end anyway, she got angry at that. Man really couldn't win. I honestly think that some of his suggestions were sensible, for instance .
Fast forward to the second half, when the three have apparently agreed that it was happening and had gone into execution phase. . Josie then goes through several back-and-forths of being ready but not ready - again something totally understandable given the circumstances but I hated that once again it was all about her and her and her, she just refused to acknowledge that her indecision and dragging the two guys along with it first one way and then the other was not helping anyone including herself.
Just as I was feeling for Brad though, he undoes all the banked goodwill that I had by this point in the final scene at his house, where . Once again, I could see the rationale: The guys needed to bash things out at some point, but for Brad to turn around and make Tate entirely the bad guy was unfair. I get that he did not agree with the plan, that was clear from the start, but if he hadn't the courage to stand up to his wife instead of the repeated copping out with "just do what you want", then he doesn't really have the right to go around blaming others after the act is done, no? From the husband-wife dynamic portrayed in the frustratingly long first scene it is likely that she would have bulldozed over him and done it anyway, but I'm saying that if he had accepted being bulldozed at the time then it isn't really fair to complain about it afterwards, to a third party notwithstanding.
I don't know what drew me to buying tickets to this, I fully expected to be a total crying wreck at the end of it, but instead I was infuriated pretty much from the first scene and it never changed from there. Kudos to the actress playing Jodie though, her body language was key to inciting this frustration in me. A good premise and a brilliant cast let down by, honestly, stupid storytelling IMO.
September 7, 2019
Let me preface this by saying I’m not a playwright so what do I know...but while the story was intriguing and the issue of “is it murder if it’s done out of mercy” is one you’ll ruminate on, I don’t care much for Labute’s dialogue. I think people give him too much credit for writing “realistic” dialogue, but this play felt clunky. Maybe with the right director and actors it comes off better and more believable, but too much was said that would not have been said in reality. Oh well!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 16, 2022
Um... how morbid.
I'm not sure I enjoyed this. In any way. Whatsoever.
There is the potential for some powerful performances, that is true, but I did not enjoy the plot at all.
It was overly long, extremely wordy and it felt very bleak. Finding it hard to figure out the purpose of this play.
I'm not sure I enjoyed this. In any way. Whatsoever.
There is the potential for some powerful performances, that is true, but I did not enjoy the plot at all.
It was overly long, extremely wordy and it felt very bleak. Finding it hard to figure out the purpose of this play.
February 5, 2026
I loved how we didn’t know what was going on until a significant chunk of the play was done. Normal I don’t like that but in this circumstance I thought it was wonderful. I also really loved tate as a whole and how he was blunt but could still empathize really well
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 21, 2020
Big fan of LaBute plays and this one is extraordinary (the script anyway, haven't seen a production). So nice, I read it twice!
December 25, 2022
interesting concept, realistic, grim
May 9, 2024
good play! third act has great material for scenework 🎭🫱🏽🫲🏾
July 12, 2024
3.25 ummmmm morbid and funky but i enjoy 👍
August 9, 2024
i’m not the biggest fan of contemporary plays (or at least just plain reading them) so i kinda knew going in that it wouldn’t be my favorite, it’s probably amazing staged and with a director’s touch and for that it is saved — super cool idea, but maybe just a little too cliche for a murder plot
Read
August 26, 2018Depressing.
Euthanasia.
Euthanasia.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews