Artzberger and White in Reasons To Be Pretty.

In Reasons To Be Pretty, the Neil LaBute play currently being staged by Studio Theatre, the couple at the focus of the drama have a heartfelt conversation near the play’s conclusion. The pair are debating the reasoning behind their breakup, which happened in violent detail earlier in the play. Is the perceived meaning behind the cutting remark that Greg (Ryan Artzberger) made about Steph (Marget White) really representative of something so essential, so central to any relationship, that the breakup was necessary? “To most girls, it honestly is,” she tells him.

Whether you agree with her or not probably will have a big impact on how much you get out of LaBute’s play, the conclusion to his beauty-centered trilogy that also includes Fat Pig and The Shape of Things. Those familiar with those first two works, however, will find a concluding piece where much less feels at stake, everything is less shocking, and the questions feel less provocative.

The play opens with the aforementioned break-up fight, and it’s a wholly uncomfortable twenty minutes or so, with Steph lashing out at Greg for his offense, an insulting comment about her which was overheard by her friend Carly. It takes awhile for Greg’s discretion to be revealed (he said Steph’s face was “regular” looking, though we’re still unclear about the exact context by the fight’s end), and it’s enough to send Steph storming out of the apartment, and eventually, the relationship. White and Artzberger make things appropriately awkward and heated, though White’s wild gesticulating can feel disruptively practiced.