Entertainment Featuring fresh takes and real-time analysis from HuffPost's signature lineup of contributors Michael Giltz Freelance writerGET UPDATES FROM MICHAEL GILTZ Follow Germany , Video , Neil Labute , New York Around Town , Comedy , New York Theater , Nyc Theater , Play , The Ugly One , Entertainment NewsReact Inspiring Funny Hot Scary Outrageous Amazing Weird CrazyTheater: New Comic Play The Ugly One Only Goes Skin Deep The Ugly One ** out of **** Soho Rep Beauty is skin deep and so are the conceits in this high concept, low content comedy.</p><p> The play by Marius von Mayenburg sounds very Neil LaBute-like in description.</p><p> Lette, the valued engineer of a brand new 2CK electrical plug, is dismayed to find out he won't be presenting theproduct at a convention.</p><p> Instead, it will be his assistant,a gloried coffee getter who doesn't even have a degree.</p><p> Both the assistant and Lette's boss are confused by his reaction.</p><p> Surely Lette understands why he couldn'tpossibly be the face of this important new product? Surely he knows? Knows what? That he isexceptionally... ugly.</p><p> Our hero goes home to find out his wife feels the same way.</p><p> She loves him but never looks him directly in the face, not if it can be helped.</p><p> They make love, presumably, in the dark.</p><p> Dismayed, Lette goes in forradical plastic surgery.</p><p> The result is a new face that is unexpectedly beautiful.</p><p> How would someone react to that? An interesting play might have trod a different path but The Ugly One takes the obvious course: Lette is swarmed by women who want to sleep with him and becomes quite a jerk.</p><p> When the doctor starts performing the surgery on other people, they all look exactly like Lette's new face so "copies" of him start popping up everywhere.</p><p> This annoys him to no end, though bythe end of the play he's inexplicably attracted to another man who looks like him, though before that he'sbeen furious at every sighting.MOST POPULAR ON HUFFPOST 1 of 2 Mitt Romney To Flood Victim: 'Go Home And Call 211' Former 'SNL' Star Makes Shocking Comments About Rape And Gay Friends Paul Ryan Admits Marathon Lie What's Up With Those Circular Marks On Curiosity? Eastwood Misfires WATCH: Rachel Maddow At A Loss For Words After Clint Eastwood's RNC Speech Celebs React To Eastwood's Wild SPeech 35 Awesome 'Simpsons' GIFs Sarah Palin May Be Done At Fox News: Report DON'T MISS HUFFPOST BLOGGERS 1 of 5FOLLOW USCelebrity TV Political Hollywood Features Hollywood Buzz Videos September 1, 2012 Edition: U.S.</p><p> FRONT PAGE POLITICS BUSINESS MEDIA CELEBRITY TV COMEDY FOOD STYLE ARTS BOOKS LIVE ALL SECTIONS Dr.</p><p> Peggy Drexler Gary Hart Rep.</p><p> Dennis Kucinich Kevin MaurerHOT ON THE BLOG Like 107 Posted: 02/ 8/2012 3:16 pm SHARE THIS STORY Submit this storyGet Entertainment Alerts Sign UpLike 6k Like 1k Like 6k Like 32 Like 4k Like 2k Like 201 Like 1k Like 2kOscars 2013 iPhone app iPad app Android phone app Android tablet app More Log in Create AccountThe Twilight Zone and countless other works of imagination have played with ideas of beauty and cloning and how people might react.</p><p> Twilight episode "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" showed a superficial, sex-obsessed world where a girl who doesn't want to get surgery to look identical to everyone else is finally bludgeoned into doing it.</p><p> The result is unnerving, bland conformity and we're dismayed when thegirl is pleased.</p><p> In "The Eye Of The Beholder," we know a woman is desperately trying to get plasticsurgery to end her extreme deformity.</p><p> The punch line appears when she's revealed to be beautiful butwe're told the surgery has failed: everyone else is hideous so the ideas of beauty on her world areradically different.</p><p> I suppose The Ugly One has some comment on beauty and superficiality to make but it's too straightforward and unsurprising to offer even the modest insight of those TV episodes.</p><p> Since the play itself is muddled, it's not surprising this production is as well, with director Daniel Aukin sometimes allowing a broad comic tone and other times a seriousness of purpose to prevail.</p><p> The cast is generally game, though the material and direction keep their work from cohering.</p><p> Steven Boyer had a great success recently in Hand to God (which returns February 29) and he has moments here in dual roles of the lab assistant and the gay son of a wealthy, dominating female business owner that sleeps with Lette.</p><p> I'm not quite sure why they gave him scraggly, unattractive facial hair but Iam sure why he speaks in a low, oddly distinctive voice as the assistant.</p><p> It's simply so our hero can have ameltdown and argue with himself at the finale and we can distinguish his "good" side from the "bad" sidethat sounds like the assistant.</p><p> It was not a good choice.</p><p> Lisa Joyce has fun as the wife and the elderly businesswoman, playing one straightforwardly and the other in a broad, farcical style that scores some laughs but again keeps the play off kilter and from everfinding the right tone throughout.</p><p> Tossed in bits of incest and crude sexuality that don't really build on the play's ideas seem there just to provoke.</p><p> Andrew Garman is good as both Lette's boss and the plastic surgeon.</p><p> Alfredo Narcisco has the most consistent performance style as Lette, helped by the fact that he plays only one role.</p><p> He's good-looking, so the early scenes have an interesting disconnect when he's told how uglyhe is.</p><p> Narcisco gets his laughs by treating this seriously, which is surely the right way to go.</p><p> But thedramatic finale -- which combines potential suicide with a Caryl Churchill-like attempt at word play andan emotional meltdown -- is far too muddled as written for him to pull it off.</p><p> Ultimately, the piece is not ugly or pretty enough to be memorable.</p><p> Cyrano could turn even a giant nose into a distinctive advantage.</p><p> But here the concept and story of The Ugly One is too bland to make an impression, even a bad one.</p><p> The Theater Season 2011-2012 (on a four star scale) The Agony And The Ecstasy Of Steve Jobs ** 1/2 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