The Ugly One is short, fast, funny and feisty. Though barely an hour in length, the density and intensity of the material make German playwright Marius von Mayenburg’s 2007 dark comedy a full dose of theatre. Being remounted at Tarragon’s Extra Space by Toronto’s award-winning Theatre Smash, an independent theatre company dedicated to bringing international contemporary theatre to Canada, this is the story of Lette, whose life changes when surgery turns his face from repulsive to irresistible.

The concept is simple but the philosophical implications are profound: What if money could buy the perfect face? It’s The Elephant Man meets The Matrix.

Senior engineer Lette (David Jansen) has developed an innovative electrical plug which stands to make his company a lot of money. His boss, Scheffler (Hardee T. Lineham), assigns a junior assistant, Karlmann (Jesse Aaron Dwyre) to present the product at a prestigious international trade show. Lette is baffled to discover that the reason he cannot be the one to promote his own invention is that he is just too ugly. Somehow he has gone through his whole life, career, and marriage utterly unaware of the apparent “fact” that his face is “unacceptable”, “a disaster.” Scheffler can’t believe Lette didn’t know he was ugly but makes it plain. “You can’t sell anything with that face.”

Lette’s wife, Fanny (Naomi Wright), tells him “It’s not that I think you’re ugly…It’s a fact.” Lette doesn’t see the ugliness his boss and wife refer to, but having been made aware that he is seen this way, he goes to a plastic surgeon (played, without costume change, by Lineham) who explains to Lette his face is so hideous that no part of it can be salvaged. He will have to completely reinvent every feature and aspect of Lette’s face, leaving no trace of his original appearance.

Once the job is done, the surgeon is so proud of his “masterpiece” he laments that one day his creation will perish, as if Lette has no existence beyond the new face he has been given. At first Lette considers his new face an unrecognizable mask; it “isn’t me.” But soon he comes to identify himself entirely and exclusively with his new universally admired face.

Things get philosophical when debates arise over whether the beautiful new face belongs, as intellectual property, to the surgeon who created it—and who masters the technique of replicating it identically on other eager patients stricken with average looks—or to Lette who merely wears the face. The face becomes a commodity, and Lette’s self-worth and market value, as well as his identity, go off the rails as “his” face starts showing up on other people.

The audience in Tarragon’s Extra Space is divided in two by a performance space which is three-quarters filled with a vast slab of a table serving as board room table, operating table, and later in the show, as a meta-stage where characters strut with the new-found confidence that a perfect face bestows. All four actors are dressed in grey business attire. Each plays multiple characters without any costume change (set and costume design, Camellia Koo).

Transitions are sharp as scenes change with the speed of light. Actors switch mid-breath from one character or setting to another, spinning the focus from one part of the stage, suddenly blacked out, to another instantly illuminated place (lighting design, Jason Hand). Exchanges are for the most part tense, loud, and filled with implication. Don’t come if you have a migraine.

It is an extreme narrative hour which frantically builds to a crescendo. The content and execution of the material are over the top and might be “a bit much” for someone of delicate sensibilities, but if you’re up for a quick, wild, self-indulgent ride, The Ugly One is the theatrical equivalent of doing tequila body shots off a psychotic supermodel.

$21-53. Theatre Smash and Tarragon Theatre's The Ugly One, Tarragon Theatre, runs until Feb. 16

Evan Andrew Mackay is a Toronto playwright and humorist who writes about culture and social justice.