Neil LaBute Play Takes Center Stage in Southampton

“The Money Shot,” a play by Neil LaBute, which Variety’s Scott Foundas called “an acid-tongued showbiz satire” when it premiered Off Broadway in 2014, will have a two-and-a-half week run at the Southampton Cultural Center starting next Thursday at 7:30 p.m.

A playwright, film director, and screenwriter, Mr. LaBute has been labeled misanthropic and his work likened to that of David Mamet. The film “In the Company of Men,” for example, which he wrote and directed, was about two business executives who decide to exact revenge on the female gender by ruining the life of the most innocent girl they can find. 

With 10 feature films to his credit, Mr. LaBute is no stranger to Hollywood. “Money Shot” is set in the Hollywood Hills house of a noted actress whose career has been in decline since she came out as a lesbian and her girlfriend, an assistant editor with a film degree from Brown. Their guests are an aging action star and his wife, a thin blonde half his age.

The actress and aging star have been cast in “Jackhammer,” a film by a respected Belgian director they hope will reboot their careers, and a meeting is held to discuss the scene they are to shoot the following day. Because it will include having real sex on camera, they want to get the approval of their mates. Needless to say, the meeting starts nasty and goes downhill from there, but the zingers let loose “make up in belly laughs and inspired performances what it lacks in nuance or novelty,” according to Mr. Foundas. The center does not recommend the play for children under 17.

The cultural center’s production will star Bonnie Grice, the doyenne of WPPB, Joseph Marshall, Tamara Salkin, and Kristin Whiting, and be directed by Joan M. Lyons. Performances will take place Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8, and Sundays at 2:30 through Feb. 5. Tickets are $22, $12 for students under 21.