Tom Sullivan (the name also belongs to a real-life blind entertainer) discovers over the course of a quippy chat that Helen also tips the scale in the personality department. The twentysomething Tom, at sixes and sevens regarding his life direction after another lack-luster relationship, ventures a cautious request to see Helen sometime.
His parents might have said about ordering off the menu, “Don’t take a bite of something you can’t finish” but Tom appears to be blind to Helen’s weight. He wants to test his mettle and probe for a deeper connection with someone. He may also, given his boyish Michael J. Fox irresistibility, subconsciously believe that even a brief affair with a hunk would be a net gain for Helen. However, foreseeing the ridicule a relationship with her will heap upon him from friends and co-workers, he quickly closets their get-togethers.
Bonney keeps the depth of the inner turmoil in these two from surfacing for most of the play. It's a measured strategy to provide greater impact later on, but it does make the bulk of the play seem lighter than it otherwise might. LaBute has kept his stage tidy with only two additional characters, both from Tom‘s world.
Without a friend of her own, Helen can't let her hair down and show the mix of euphoria and dread that accompany suddenly becoming the object of desire of a truly cute guy. We only glimpse how she’s feeling through her carefully monitored interaction with Tom, where she must keep the lid on her feelings so as not to freak him out. Structurally, therefore, Vangsness is prohibited from making this show her own, but she gives us glimpses into her true feelings as much as she can, and sounds the plea we should all heed: "Just be honest with me."
Instead, Tom and Helen's relationship is reflected in the cool, cruel world of Tom’s office, where the people are incapable of looking unattractive, and of looking at the "unattractive" with anything but contempt or pity. Ironically, they appear incapable of engaging in healthy relationships of their own. Jeannie (Andrea Anders), a sexy 28-year-old from the accounting department who has been dating Tom, has to wring from him the fact that he isn’t interested anymore.
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