Finding the beauty in ugly

Finding the beauty in ugly

Actor Eden Falk is charged with the rather odd task of playing a man who transforms from inhibitingly unattractive to a specimen of perfection in The Ugly One.

How will Falk pull off the two vastly different looks in German playwright Marius von Maybenburg’s play?

“The play is really about perception, and how you see yourself. [Falk’s character Lette] is a very intelligent man — an engineer and an inventor — but he’s oblivious to the aesthetics of what beauty is,” Falk said.

Until, that is, Lette’s employer breaks the news that his face is holding him back from progressing to the next phase of his career.

“The blinders come off and he realises that people view him as ugly. It prompts him to change his face with surgery. After that, everyone treats him completely differently, even though he’s the same person.”

Does Falk, a stage and screen actor who recently filmed a role in The Great Gatsby, relate to Lette’s struggles with self-perception?

“Totally. In my industry, so much of your failure or success is because you look a certain way. But I think everyone can relate. We’ve all asked ourselves at one point, am I beautiful? Am I ugly? Do people see me the way I see myself?

“It’s a pretty horrible moment when you gain that objectivity and you see yourself the way others do.”

INFO: The Ugly One, SBW Stables Theatre, November 25 – December 17. www.griffintheatre.com.au

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