Theatre / “Reasons to be Pretty” by Neil LaBute. At Mill Theatre until May 6. Reviewed by ARNE FEALING.

CAPTURING a couple in trouble and one about to get there, this was an intriguing look at life for the Walmart generation.

An explosive opening argument between a seemingly hapless Greg (Rhys Hekimian) and his girlfriend of four years, the borderline psychotic Steph (Alana Denham-Preston) was hypnotic. It launched the audience directly into the passenger seat of a story all about those fights people have, when they need to get out of each other’s lives.

Unable to be in love amidst the conflict of clashing into frustration and personal limit, it became obvious something was about to break. Probably the blood vessels in Steph’s temples.

A basic set, allowing the actors to charge about and become one with the space, each nibble at their lives brought attention closer to the play, and its basic lens on to poor male behaviour and some ladies who can only react and respond.

With Greg’s character, finding himself doing more of the bouncing back from every other character’s vortex of arrogance and confusion – he became a neutral ground for letting the voice of reason and moral truth surface through the play.

As much about body image as it was about disentanglement and pride – like a Greek tragedy that tends to leave you thinking some lessons have been learnt, in this play no one truly wins. Except perhaps the non-pretty girl, who had to let her ideas of love and herself go, as she journeyed into a life that would bring her closer to her idea of happiness.

Kent (Ryan Erlandsen) was a bolshy bad boy obsessed with appearance and his appendage, and held his own strongly amidst a cast of clever actors. Denham-Preston, who couldn’t bear not to be appreciated, was a firecracker about to explode at any second, crackling her hardship out in an invective that had you paying attention to her every word.

I’m not sure the American accents worked all the time. They were a little generic. I sat wondering if an Australian conversion might work. Like making a left-hand drive car become a right, so you didn’t need a sign on it to drive the car in Australia. Of course, it was not that bad at all, and did suit LaBute’s text.

The very clever Lexi Sekuless, as Carly, had the most endearing characterisation, and played it like a clever pin-up girl who had grown up a bit. She won best actor for the evening, with a delicate and addictive performance.

Director Tim Sekuless might have thought about finding opportunity to run the script a little deeper – as the interplay between each character at times seemed unbalanced.

A play of many lines, and much working-class man/woman activity, the moral to the story goes a little something like: don’t annoy your partner, or disappoint them, or you might just end up in a fight and have your life changed forever.