Several years ago when a co-worker gingerly told me that I was not fat but just big-boned and round, I thought,  ell, gee thanks! That is precious and makes me feel better.  Not really.  Who was she kidding?  Big-boned and round?  Those were just two of the many euphemisms for the word  AT.  Try plump, chubby, thick, chunky, portly, curvaceous, adipose, corpulent, and Rubenesque among others. To me they are all the same.  Fat is fat and no matter how nice one tries to put it, there really is no inoffensive substitute to the word.  Note to size 0 people, try just keeping your mouth shut whenever you are in the presence of size 8 and up people.

Feel OK with who I am. The trick is getting other people to be OK with it," said Helen, star of the play Fat Pig currently showing at the Studio Theater in Washington, DC.  Playwright Neil LaBute explores how society treats a romance between a young single man and his generously proportioned girlfriend.  While the title is bitingly sarcastic, the play is more cautious and sentimental, not to mention funny as hell.

Kate Debelack plays Helen, a smart, witty and overweight  rinted-word specialist or librarian.  Helen meets Tom (Bobby Rector) at a crowded restaurant and shares her table with him. Over polite conversation, they exchange phone numbers and after a few dinners they begin a romantic relationship.  Carter (Paul Nalabandian) and Jeannie (Anne Bowles) are the cruel and harsh co-workers of Tom who tease and torment him about his full-figured girlfriend.  


The question is will Tom succumb to the increasing and mounting peer pressure from his co-workers to dump his fat girlfriend or will true love hold?  Is Tom man enough to stick to his true love, lumps and cellulites and all?


At first, the audience is led to believe that Tom can handle the constant ribbing of his cruel co-workers.  He continues to date Helen but holds off on introducing her to his co-workers.  Her wallet-size photo was unceremoniously emailed to everyone already at his workplace and that alone unleashed a constant stream of fat jokes.  And so, Tom delays introducing Helen to his co-workers and Helen justly feels that he is ashamed of her.  


At this point, one might surmise that their relationship will survive.  I certainly hoped it would and that the play will end happily with Tom not really caring about what other people think of his girlfriend.  After all, he loves her right?  This is what he keeps telling her.  Assuring Helen that he has never been in a relationship wherein he truly is happy until he met her.  And Helen, how can one not love her?  Devoted, witty, caring, okay, she may not be as thin as Jennifer Aniston but still         And then comes the company beach party.  Hmmm what to wear, what to wear?  Helen jokingly asks Tom if she should stick to her thong or try her new two-piece bikini.  At the beach party, Tom camps himself and Helen several miles away from his co-workers so that they can have some privacy.  Right.  They get into a discussion and the audience gets to see that Tom is not really man enough  for the Rubenesque Helen.  He tearfully admits to Helen that though he loves her very much, he is still much of a coward when it comes to societal pressure. The play ends at that point and it is pretty much obvious that their relationship is not going to survive after all.
Moral of the story?  Love may be blind but it takes more than that.  Maybe love should also be deaf to peer pressure.


Kristine Solidum can be reached at kristine8996@yahoo.com>