They’re in the gym at the crack of dawn, sweating and straining, or out by the millions buying diet books, trying Slimfast and Atkins and South Beach, all in pursuit of thinner thighs, flatter tummies, a smaller dress size or that ultimate good: media-defined physical perfection.

This week, two plays about body image are in local theaters. Eve Ensler, best known for the award-winning Vagina Monologues, turns her attention to the American woman’s pursuit of the perfect body in The Good Body.

On the other end of the weight question is Neil LaBute, who gives us a plus-sized woman comfortable in her own skin in Fat Pig, and the “normal” people around her who can’t deal with it.

Taken together or separately, these plays offer food for thought … and that’s a nosh that won’t go to your thighs.

Deanna Driscoll’s middle-aged Eve notes that when she was younger, her goal was to be “good.” That meant physical perfection – in this case, a flat stomach. “My body will be mine when I am thin,” she says, to which end she tortures herself at the gym, denies herself bread, ice cream, anything that won’t contribute to that pursuit.

Delicia Turner Sonnenberg directs Eve Ensler’s The Good Body, playing through Sept. 28 at San Diego Repertory Theatre.

Structured like Vagina Monologues, Ensler uses three actresses (Driscoll, Karole Foreman and Linda Libby) to introduce us to several women with varying body issues. There’s Bernice (Libby), the teen exiled to “fat camp” who wants to know who let the skinny girls in: “Skinny bitches are always trying to make us feel sorry for them when their entire torso could fit up my sleeve.”

Puerto Rican Carmen (Driscoll) doesn’t worry about abs or a big butt; she obsesses about “the spread that oozes out of you, against your will.”

Tiffany (Foreman) has had so much plastic surgery from the Pygmalionlike Dr. Ham that she now identifies herself as “Ham’s creation” and has, in fact, married him.

And Carol (Libby) has vaginal reconstruction surgery to “tighten up” in hopes of pleasing husband Harry.

On Victoria Petrovich’s terrific blue and white checkerboard set flanked by four perfect blue and white mannequins, the women pour out their disgust, their worries and fears about the imperfections that surely translate to unlovability.

American women will identify with all these characters, even Dana (Libby), whose business is piercing and decorating almost any available fold of skin.

This production is blessed with one of the best directors in town in Sonnenberg, and three of our best actresses. Driscoll is absolutely endearing in her anchor role as Eve. When she says, “What I can’t believe is that someone like me, a radical feminist for nearly thirty years, could spend this much time thinking about my stomach,” you know she gets it, and makes even the men in the audience understand the craziness.

Libby’s considerable comedic talents are used to good advantage in multiple roles such as Bernice and Dana, but she is also affecting as the too-eager-to-please Carol. Foreman plays a variety of women, foreign and domestic, with great relish.

Ensler understands both the female psyche and the media-driven society American women inhabit. She also has a facility for dead-on monologue that gets her points across with humor. In interview, Ensler describes the point of The Good Body this way: “Be bold and love your body. STOP FIXING IT. It was never broken.”

The Good Body plays through Sept. 28 at San Diego Repertory Theatre. Shows Wednesday and Sunday at 7 p.m.; Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; matinee Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets, call 619-544-1000 or www.sandiegorep.com.

Playwright Neil LaBute knows the dark hearts of men better than anyone. Probably his best known play (later a film) In the Company of Men exposed their predatory nature and forced us to watch the deliberate cruelty of dating a deaf woman with the intent of dumping her.

In Fat Pig, LaBute’s topic is human weakness as seen through the American obsession with weight and its relationship to beauty and desirability. OnStage Playhouse gives performance space to homeless InnerMission Productions in a fine co-production of Fat Pig, playing through Oct. 4. Kym Pappas directs.

Plus-sized Helen (Carla Nell) is happily devouring lunch in a local joint when young corporate hotshot Tom (Brendan Cavalier) arrives with a tray to find no chairs in sight. Sharing a table and rather awkward conversation, he finds her bright, funny and disarmingly honest, and at the end of lunch wants to see her again.

But as soon as he returns to his corporate world – happier than usual – and is pumped for information by office gossip Carter (Ryan Ross), he begins to realize that his colleagues will look at him differently if and when word gets out about Helen.

Of course, that’s just what happens, and while the relationship deepens with Helen, Tom finds himself contending with the likes of corporate accountant Jeannie (Jenna Dawsey), a hot blonde with whom Tom never made a clean romantic break, who doesn’t hesitate to chime in with cruel comments. Will Tom be strong enough to follow his heart?

Nell anchors the show, getting the honesty/vulnerability ratio just right as Helen. Ross’s office gossip is suitably annoying, as is Dawsey’s jilted Jeannie. Cavalier plays Tom where he lives – on the surface, in a performance both infuriating and sad.

LaBute writes sharp, humorous and realistic dialogue – and in this case, some of it is downright squirm-inducing. I hate to admit it, but I recognize elements of myself in each of these characters.

Fat Pig is both horrifying and one of the best productions of the season.

An aside: while many, perhaps most women struggle with weight most of their lives (thanks to American marketing which demands it), LaBute reports that at one point he was oversized himself, and set out to lose it. Six months and sixty pounds later, he found he was looking at himself in the mirror more and writing less.

Fat Pig plays through Oct. 4 at OnStage Playhouse in Chula Vista. Shows Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets, call 619-422-7787 or visit onstageplayhouse.org/current.html.