He’s the x-man. He’s an ex-lawyer, ex-husband, ex-military man, and he’s unnamed. Man, as he is simply known throughout the Neil LaBute play, “This is How it Goes,” is about to disintegrate a marriage with his mouth.
The Bakersfield College production of the play is directed by BC theater instructor Kimberly Chin. Don’t be fooled by the low-key, non-metaphorical title: This play is full of rapid-fire quips deployed by the former high school loser, Man (John Spitzer) to the handsome black man Cody Phipps (Jacare Calhoun) who is oblivious to his own sexism but is super sensitive to racist remarks, which is ironic because he makes a remark to Man that “words only have power if you give them power.” Throughout the play, Man gleefully tests Cody on this remark. He often does this in front of Cody’s wife Belinda (Mandie Sopher). Man had a crush on Belinda in high school and still likes her. When Cody says something about his children’s physical attributes, Man remarks that “they’ve got Belinda’s eyes and the rest of it comes from the Congo.” However, Cody is a jerk as well. Speaking to Man in a restaurant after a waitress whizzes by apparently ignoring them, Cody remarks, “Don’t worry. Women always come back.”
“You mean like Lassie?” Man jokes.
Both men are jerks, but Belinda has had to live with Cody, so she tries to get rid of him. So, after a chance encounter with Man in a Sears, she invites him to rent her garage apartment. Man accepts.
The trouble with this play is that the ending isn’t terribly surprising. It’s clear that Belinda wants to divest herself of Cody, and it’s understandable why she wants Man around. There certainly isn’t any suspense even when Belinda makes the remark that “Cody could kill anyone in the long haul.” The phrase “the long haul” is a metaphor for a lousy marriage, especially her marriage. However, the play is such a light-hearted one that the viewer doesn’t assume Belinda’s life could be in danger.
What’s good about this play is the acting and especially when Sopher’s Belinda has to wince at Cody’s prickly defensiveness around Man, Sopher does just that as though she’s thinking about what expression Belinda would wear on her face at a time like that instead of handling the situation superficially as a high school actor would. When she has to jump to attention when the chauvinist Cody barks an order at her, Sopher is appropriately disconcerted.
Regrettably, oftentimes when Spitzer makes lengthy asides to the audience, he looks a little bit uncomfortable, like a high school boy who feels like a five-year-old who wants to wet his pants. Granted, standing in front of an audience is not the most comfortable activity, but he looked down at the floor a few too many times. Sometimes his approach shows he’s still wet behind the ears. However, Spitzer is on target when his character has to interact with the others. Man’s glee at making provocative remarks is not Machiavellian, and so Spitzer doesn’t really have to appear malicious, and he doesn’t. All Spitzer has to do is be a non-serious devil’s advocate, and that’s what Spitzer gets across to the audience many times over. Now, one has to make the assumption that Man’s goal is to win Belinda, but still there is no need for real callousness in the role.
Notable is Calhoun’s performance. He conveys the fatigue that Cody feels at racist remarks but also the understanding that Cody is at least perhaps peripherally aware that Man is just being a devil’s advocate and doesn’t really mean what he says, but he shows that Cody takes everything too seriously and is sick of both serious and non-serious jibes on race. He uses both face and body to show a youthful athlete’s demeanor and at other times, he convincingly shows the cynical weariness of Cody reacting to Man’s sprightliness. All things considered, the director clearly took extra time working on the actors’ interpretations of the characters.