What do you think?
Rate this book
The Break of Noon: A Play
What if God told you to be a better person but the world wouldn’t allow it?
Such is the dilemma facing Joe Smith, a run-of-the-mill white-collar businessman who survives an office shooting and is subsequently touched by what he believes to be a divine vision. His journey toward personal enlightenment—past greed and lust and the other deadly sins—is, by turns, tense, hilarious, profane, and heartbreaking.
Exploring the narrow path to spiritual fulfillment and how strewn it is with the funny, frantic failings of humankind, The Break of Noon showcases Neil LaBute at his discomfiting best.
Such is the dilemma facing Joe Smith, a run-of-the-mill white-collar businessman who survives an office shooting and is subsequently touched by what he believes to be a divine vision. His journey toward personal enlightenment—past greed and lust and the other deadly sins—is, by turns, tense, hilarious, profane, and heartbreaking.
Exploring the narrow path to spiritual fulfillment and how strewn it is with the funny, frantic failings of humankind, The Break of Noon showcases Neil LaBute at his discomfiting best.
106 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2010
7 people are currently reading
66 people want to read
About the author
Neil LaBute
83 books120 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 - 16 of 16 reviews
September 26, 2022
Very impressive that LaBute is able to turn a horrifically violent tragedy into such a sexist and predictable play.
October 9, 2012
I read about fifty plays every year. Some for the first time. Many for the third or fourth times. It comes with the job of coaching high school speech and debate. As a general rule, I don’t let these plays (and assorted other things) count toward my review goals, mostly because a lot of them are ten minute scenes, but also because there is a difference between reading for work and reading for pleasure. I rarely treat a potential speech piece the way I do an epic fantasy, or a piece of popular nonfiction. But every once in a while, something will overlap.
Neil LaBute has always been intriguing to me. I’m particularly fond of his short play, Iphigenia in Orem out of the “Bash” compilation. LaBute never lets the uncomfortable topic get in the way of telling a story, and the scenes are all the more compelling for forcing the audience to confront these terrible situations. I could go on, but most of what needs to be said about his provocative style can be found in other, more professional reviews and criticism.
The Break of Noon opens with an unnamed man recounting his experiences as the only survivor of a terrible office shooting. Moments before he is to be killed, this man experiences a holy vision in which God tells him to remain still, at the mercy of the shooter, and he will be saved. Convinced that he has been chosen, this John Smith believes that he is now obligated to lead a better life at God’s command, but he doesn’t really know where to start.
The play follows his interactions with a lawyer, his former wife, a talk show host, a dominatrix, his wife’s cousin and finally the detective who interviewed him in the first scene. Each character pushes John to reexamine his experience in different ways. The scenes are confrontational, forcing the audience to examine their own beliefs about god, religion, faith, and salvation.
Break of Noon is heavily informed by the spiritual conflict at work in our culture. Having faith is simultaneously viewed as naïve, yet grounded and sensible. Politicians and pundits play on our inability to define spirituality for ourselves, regardless of what denomination we ascribe to. John Smith is berated by individuals who mock his conversion, and by those who fear confronting what he stands for. Each interaction pushes from a slightly new direction: the complete skeptic, the sudden convert, the true believer.
The play really isn’t about John Smith. We aren’t meant to immediately understand the fundamental transformation he’s undergone. He is just a concept; a rouge idea unleashed on the people in his life. We connect with one or more of those people, as we see aspects of our doubt, faith, contempt or curiosity in them. There is no judgment here; just an exploration of modern spirituality as seen through the lens of a born-again Christian. Or, perhaps I’m reading too much into things.
The Buddha discovered that the path to enlightenment wasn’t a straight line. Each individual needed to walk a path of their own making, which is why Theravada Buddhism emphasizes thought and contemplation, rather than spiritual doctrine. Unfortunately, Western spirituality is perhaps overly focused on a dogmatic approach to the divine, leaving little room for personal interpretation. But where we lack institutional introspection, we have the concept of the parable; an individual of faith placed into a situation where that faith is tested or befuddled. Break of Noon is such a parable; a tool of introspection in a society that rejects the notion.
And that is ultimately why what I get out of it is going to be very different than what you get out of it. If you take the broad view, any novel is an opportunity to confront yourself and learn a little more about what makes you tick. But some books are better than others at tapping into that mentality. The Break of Noon happens to do it for me, but I think its context is broad enough to work anyone who keeps an open mind.
Neil LaBute has always been intriguing to me. I’m particularly fond of his short play, Iphigenia in Orem out of the “Bash” compilation. LaBute never lets the uncomfortable topic get in the way of telling a story, and the scenes are all the more compelling for forcing the audience to confront these terrible situations. I could go on, but most of what needs to be said about his provocative style can be found in other, more professional reviews and criticism.
The Break of Noon opens with an unnamed man recounting his experiences as the only survivor of a terrible office shooting. Moments before he is to be killed, this man experiences a holy vision in which God tells him to remain still, at the mercy of the shooter, and he will be saved. Convinced that he has been chosen, this John Smith believes that he is now obligated to lead a better life at God’s command, but he doesn’t really know where to start.
The play follows his interactions with a lawyer, his former wife, a talk show host, a dominatrix, his wife’s cousin and finally the detective who interviewed him in the first scene. Each character pushes John to reexamine his experience in different ways. The scenes are confrontational, forcing the audience to examine their own beliefs about god, religion, faith, and salvation.
Break of Noon is heavily informed by the spiritual conflict at work in our culture. Having faith is simultaneously viewed as naïve, yet grounded and sensible. Politicians and pundits play on our inability to define spirituality for ourselves, regardless of what denomination we ascribe to. John Smith is berated by individuals who mock his conversion, and by those who fear confronting what he stands for. Each interaction pushes from a slightly new direction: the complete skeptic, the sudden convert, the true believer.
The play really isn’t about John Smith. We aren’t meant to immediately understand the fundamental transformation he’s undergone. He is just a concept; a rouge idea unleashed on the people in his life. We connect with one or more of those people, as we see aspects of our doubt, faith, contempt or curiosity in them. There is no judgment here; just an exploration of modern spirituality as seen through the lens of a born-again Christian. Or, perhaps I’m reading too much into things.
The Buddha discovered that the path to enlightenment wasn’t a straight line. Each individual needed to walk a path of their own making, which is why Theravada Buddhism emphasizes thought and contemplation, rather than spiritual doctrine. Unfortunately, Western spirituality is perhaps overly focused on a dogmatic approach to the divine, leaving little room for personal interpretation. But where we lack institutional introspection, we have the concept of the parable; an individual of faith placed into a situation where that faith is tested or befuddled. Break of Noon is such a parable; a tool of introspection in a society that rejects the notion.
And that is ultimately why what I get out of it is going to be very different than what you get out of it. If you take the broad view, any novel is an opportunity to confront yourself and learn a little more about what makes you tick. But some books are better than others at tapping into that mentality. The Break of Noon happens to do it for me, but I think its context is broad enough to work anyone who keeps an open mind.
June 23, 2011
Not one of my favorite LaBute works. I thought the ending was a let-down and the story didn't have a lot of cohesiveness.
January 15, 2024
This is between a 2 and 2/5 for me. I really loved how unreliable John Smith was as a narrator for this tragic event, and how he kept elevating his story from just hearing God helping him stay safe to fully stopping bullets from coming out of a gun. I appreciate that this play tackles the idea of trying to change when you’re already so set in your ways in society, and even more so when everybody in your life sees you as a horrible person. There was just something about this play that didn’t grip me, but I love Neil LaBute and think even his plays that don’t stick out to me are still so well written.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 10, 2020
I liked it, as I like all of LaBute's plays, but not one of my favorites. Not as interesting in its analysis of the human psyche as some others, and not as dark as others (despite the tragedy at the center of the play). In an effort to tackle a grand topic - religion - LaBute treads more lightly than he normally does when tackling smaller topics, like our obsession with physical beauty. Maybe he felt that the enormity of the issue would do the work for him, but I much prefer it when LaBute really pushes the envelope. Still, an enjoyable read if nothing else.
March 3, 2024
This play is one that can be seen as fairly ambiguous. It’s a short simple plot with a few intricacies that I can appreciate. It rides the fine line of a main character who may or may not be trying to do better, and does that just fine through its narrative. There is an intriguing religious social commentary somewhere in there, perhaps in a staging.
3/5
3/5
June 18, 2020
Nice find
Read this as I am working on a monologue from it. I would like to see this performed, among so much other theatre right now. Would also like to check out Neil Labute.s other works.
Read this as I am working on a monologue from it. I would like to see this performed, among so much other theatre right now. Would also like to check out Neil Labute.s other works.
January 8, 2018
The play is an enjoyable read and interesting how it addresses religion.
It's about a man trying to become better after a intervention by god. The play holds your attention by giving you a constant drip of information about who John used to be. Then contrasting that to who he is now.
It's something I enjoyed reading.
It's about a man trying to become better after a intervention by god. The play holds your attention by giving you a constant drip of information about who John used to be. Then contrasting that to who he is now.
It's something I enjoyed reading.
January 13, 2011
LOVED LOVED LOVED LOVED IT. At first I was afraid while reading the book, because I really enjoyed the main character, and Neil Labute has a tendency with debunking or dethroning the main character from their idyllic pillar.
John Smith is the lone survivor of a work shooting that is being called 'a massacre', and survives only because God spared him.
Life becomes plagued with questions, skeptical disbelief and accusations on why 'he' would be so special.
Wonderful play about why we do the things we do, especially when we think no one's looking.
"All we want to do is get to the end. Most of us. Live life and get whatever we can for ourselves and screw anybody who gets in the way. We don't do crimes because we don't want to get caught, go to jail, get raped by some prisoner... not because it's a sin. Because we 'shouldn't'. Being good is hard. I couldn't do it before, back when I was married and just living my life, it was almost impossible! I did all kinds of crap every day that I'm ashamed of and got away with but that's not me now. God told me "no." He spoke right to me-- you make light of it if you want, but-- this voice as clear as you or I talking reached out and saved me and let me know what I need to be doing on earth. Life, it is precious, it's short and, and can be the most amazing... but you have to work at it! You have to appreciate people and you have to do good. Good, brave things and so that's... I'm.... I do that now."
"You think that's crazy... how 'bout Noah? And Moses? Or Adam and goddamn Eve? Huh? Read the Koran or the Bible or any of it. All of this is crazy! Every last guy in the belly of a whale's insane. Okay? Totally bonkers... but it's also true."
"This spark of light I feel right here... (pointing) We all have it, everyone one of us. We know when something sits correctly with us or not, secretly we do, but we try to shake it off, say it's just us being weak or superstitious or whatever works in the moment. Chest pains!
But we know. We know... we all know on the inside. We do. I know we do. I know it!"
John Smith is the lone survivor of a work shooting that is being called 'a massacre', and survives only because God spared him.
Life becomes plagued with questions, skeptical disbelief and accusations on why 'he' would be so special.
Wonderful play about why we do the things we do, especially when we think no one's looking.
"All we want to do is get to the end. Most of us. Live life and get whatever we can for ourselves and screw anybody who gets in the way. We don't do crimes because we don't want to get caught, go to jail, get raped by some prisoner... not because it's a sin. Because we 'shouldn't'. Being good is hard. I couldn't do it before, back when I was married and just living my life, it was almost impossible! I did all kinds of crap every day that I'm ashamed of and got away with but that's not me now. God told me "no." He spoke right to me-- you make light of it if you want, but-- this voice as clear as you or I talking reached out and saved me and let me know what I need to be doing on earth. Life, it is precious, it's short and, and can be the most amazing... but you have to work at it! You have to appreciate people and you have to do good. Good, brave things and so that's... I'm.... I do that now."
"You think that's crazy... how 'bout Noah? And Moses? Or Adam and goddamn Eve? Huh? Read the Koran or the Bible or any of it. All of this is crazy! Every last guy in the belly of a whale's insane. Okay? Totally bonkers... but it's also true."
"This spark of light I feel right here... (pointing) We all have it, everyone one of us. We know when something sits correctly with us or not, secretly we do, but we try to shake it off, say it's just us being weak or superstitious or whatever works in the moment. Chest pains!
But we know. We know... we all know on the inside. We do. I know we do. I know it!"
July 15, 2011
Of all of the Neil Labute plays I have read or seen, this was the least disturbing. This is neither [raise nor criticism, merely an observation. Like his other works, Breaking Noon does examine the dark side of human behavior, but has a slightly optimistic question posed throughout about the nature of faith. The part of this book I most thoroughly enjoyed was the preface, which many would skip over but which I highly recommend that any theatre practitioners of aficionados read and digest.
August 18, 2012
Shocking story - what does one tell oneself following a life-threatening event that has no meaning, and yet changes everything? I read this script in consideration for a staged reading. It's a must.
August 2012 - am rereading to get a deeper understanding of the characters, plot, movement. I'll be directing this as a staged play in May 2013!
August 2012 - am rereading to get a deeper understanding of the characters, plot, movement. I'll be directing this as a staged play in May 2013!
June 13, 2012
Monologues alone are worth the read. They are very unlike most LaBute monologues I've read, and I've read many
Big complaint: I felt the dialogue wasn't intrusive enough. I wanted to know more about what John was thinking. I could never pinpoint his thoughts or feelings, even in the end, and that bugged me.
Big complaint: I felt the dialogue wasn't intrusive enough. I wanted to know more about what John was thinking. I could never pinpoint his thoughts or feelings, even in the end, and that bugged me.
June 2, 2013
This an interesting play. It discusses faith, and about how people react to his newfound faith after a terrifying, life altering moment in his life. I wasn’t a huge fan, but I wasn’t offended either. I think that this play is just, okay. If you have time on your hands and want a play to make you think a little bit, take a look. The first 3 scenes will be a guide if you like it or not.
February 14, 2013
Fuck YEAH.
September 10, 2015
This was less-than-okay. Read like a lazy TV drama.
October 27, 2016
My favorite Neil LaBute
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews