The Mercy Seat

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

The Mercy Seat. What an interesting provocative title for Neil LaBute’s traumatic play. The Mercy Seat was the top of the Ark of the Covenant containing The Ten Commandments. The Hebrew word is kapporeth, meaning to cover, as a lid. Exodus 25: 17-22 gives detailed instructions to Moses in how this was to be built. The root word took the meaning even further to pardon or to atone as in covering a dept. The word is used in Scripture exclusively for the Mercy Seat.

Michael Stricker and Martha Harmon Pardee in Paragon Theatre Company’s production of The Mercy Seat.

LaBute titles a play meaning to pardon or cover a dept he himself calls a savage love story. There is a seat on stage, a staunch uncomfortable-looking Italian sofa both characters spend a lot of time on, but it hardly could be classified as a Mercy Seat. Neither character asks for mercy, nor gets it.

The aforementioned sofa sits in Abby Prescott’s (Martha Harmon Pardee) high-rise loft apartment in New York City. It is the morning of September 12, 2001. The floor-to-ceiling windows, providing an otherwise spectacular view, are covered with dust and grime. Little wonder, since the view looks directly toward the World Trade Towers that no longer exists.

When the play opens Ben Harcourt (Michael Stricker) sits blankly and numbly looking at the television images of the horrific aftermath of September 11. He appears to be too paralyzed to be listening to the commentary, and eyes too glazed to see what he is looking at.

Having returned with cheese she has gone out to buy for him, Abby starts the irritating nipping at his heels the moment she walks into the apartment. They needle and harangue each other for several minutes, leaving one to wonder why they are together at all. Angry spitting words fly vehemently across the room. Abby wants to know if he has made the call. Abby wants to know why he hasn’t. There is no answer. Intermittingly Ben’s cell phone rings. He only stares at it.

Slowly their predicament unfolds. An other wise logical thinking successful career woman, Abby is Ben’s boss, though he prefers she refer to him as a colleague. They have been secretive lovers for three years.

While most of the nation sat glued to the television reeling in shock over the September 11 event, numb in their own way, wondering out loud how they can get beyond it, Ben calculating, scheming, narcissistic, self-consumed sees the tragedy as an opportunity: an opportunity to disappear, an opportunity to run off with his lover, an opportunity to avoid having to tell his wife and children about his secret torrid love affair.

He planned on making the phone call, but not the call Abby wanted him to make. If he hadn’t gone to his apartment for a secret tryst with Abby, he would have been one of the 6,000 trapped in the towers.

If this comes out of the imagination of a brilliant playwright, the bickering turmoil of the two characters leaves one wondering how many others considered this possibility, how many others disappeared out of opportunity? While the nation publicly grieved, the “What if?” “And what about?” questions tumble through the mind. While the news offered story after story of contemplative hope, healing and heroic eulogies to sooth the wounded ideals, LaBute chooses to explore the not so heroic attitudes always lurking behind the scenes, raising honest questions few have dared, in public, much less on stage to verbalize.

The original script calls for the entire loft to be covered in dust, but Paragon chose to project the loft as an extension of its occupant: barren, stern, with sharp edges. Even the knees react to running into the triangle shaped coffee table. It is also intriguing to note that at a time when cell phones weren’t working in that proximity, Ben’s cell rings incessantly. Yes, of course, his wife is trying desperately to reach him, but —. Ultimately, the poetic license LaBute has chosen, serves its unnerving purpose.

Stricker and Pardee give stunning performances with their self-absorbed nitpicking irritating characters. Ben and Abby fight for their lives to define and defend themselves. Definitely not a performance for children, the “F” word is thrown around in silly abandonment. No question, there are times this descriptive word makes a statement no other can, but when used so freely it not only makes me question the intelligence of the characters as well as the intelligence of the playwright. After the first 50 times, its effectiveness wears thin, speaking to the stupidity of a highly successful woman wearing a vulnerable mask to get trapped in a most unsatisfactory love affair, wanting her underling to leave his wife and children, horrified to discover he had no plans to, unnerved because he grabs anxiously at an easy way out, knowing she would have to give up everything she worked for.

Granted, this play is not for everyone, but for those willing to embrace intriguing possibilities, gnawing questions, with highly-defined characters that may be far more representative than one wishes, displayed by two very talented actors, directed by astute and gifted Warren Sherrill. The Mercy Seat promises to get under your skin and stay there. Stricker and Pardee know how to make that happen.