Reasons to be happy? There should be plenty. This is the title of a play by Neil LaBute, after all – he of the confrontational dialogues and endlessly complex relationships. It is also the sequel to “Reasons to be Pretty.” It is produced by Michael Attenborough, who also staged the earlier work when it came to London. (That was at the Almeida, this is at Hampstead Theatre). Best of all, it is a play which already had strong qualities when it was done in New York (where this writer first saw it).It has lost a little in its transition across the pond, but it is still a work with impressive qualities, and a trademark explosive row that fires up right from the start.From this promising opening, one may hope for another “This is How It Goes” or “The Shape of Things” – people taking chunks out of each other with some witty asides along the way to sugar the dramatic pill: “I haven’t stopped thinking about you since you smashed my ice cream sandwiches into the pavement.”It’s not quite what we get, but the soapy plot is twisty enough to keep us going for a long time. Confused? You won’t be…Steph is still mad at Greg. They used to be lovers, right at the start of “Reasons to be Pretty.” Now they are long broken up, she’s married to someone else, and Greg has just started to go out with her best friend Carly. Steph is angry at him for not saying anything. He says it’s a new relationship with Carly and they are still working out their feelings, and, besides, Steph’s with someone else. Steph wants to get back with Greg. Carly wants to marry him too. His best friend Kent, Carly’s ex-husband, is caught in the middle.The intellectual Greg, who seems more interested books and escaping the Midwest for a teaching job in New York, has to choose between them. Because he is indecisive and doesn’t want to hurt anyone, and because this is LaBute, it all gets very messy.Lauren O’Neil blazes away as Steph, who certainly has attitude and a half. Carly (Robyn Addison) isn’t far behind her in the American assertiveness front. Tom Burke well conveys the tousled Greg, though one may wonder what Greg does offstage that makes the two women desire him so much. Or even why Kent likes him. For the most part the gray-clad academic has his nose buried in a book. The blokey Kent (Warren Brown) simply despises books.The best set-pieces bounce from sexy frying pan to fire and Soutra Gilmour’s set is ingenuous, with a spinning container that can transform from office to restaurant or playing field between blasts of the Who and Rolling Stones.The New York version managed to have enough animation to get over the constant long twofer scenes, with the lovers endlessly just talking to each other. Greg’s indecision looks final and this is something of a sticking point. As Steph says, his clarity is “pretty much like the consistency of mud.” That dramatic problem over, and leaving aside a few slightly off Midwest accents, this is a lot more than a romantic comedy. It is a thought-provoking work about love and being in the right place in relationships. We leave the four all trying to work out where they are, and the playwright effectively leaving the door open to revisiting them. Be it in London, New York or the dead-end town the characters are trying to escape, one feels this will run and run as a super- sophisticated stage soap.“Reasons to Be Happy” is at Hampstead Theatre, Eton Avenue, Swiss Cottage, London, to April 16.
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