The Mercy Seat: A Play Review

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(More customer reviews)...of course, with plenty of LaBute's sometimes heavy-handed misanthropy. I originally began reading LaBute's plays after seeing Bash, and while I'll say that that one is better (everyone should read it!), I'll say that Mercy Seat is second only to that play for honest-to-god squirm-in-your-seat disgust at humanity's...human-ness.
Here in America, the gimme-gimme capital of the world, it's easy to pretend you don't see the poor, the sick, and the war-ravaged (especially since they're across the ocean). Then on Tuesday, September 11th, 2001 America got a huge wake-up call--we were the war-ravaged for once. The Mercy Seat, set on Wedensday, September 12th, is a multi-layered examination of just how deep our image of concern for fellow man really went in those troubled days. According to Neil LaBute, not very far.
LaBute's play is the story of Abby Prescott and Ben Harcourt, two self-absorbed New Yorkers--that is, they were a day ago, before "9-11". Did the tragedy that befell their coworkers, friends, and family change their attitude? Not at all. In fact, their selfishness is what saved their lives; if Ben hadn't been cheating on his wife, they would have actually been at work like he told his wife.
With brutal honesty and the kind of cruel, biting wit, LaBute shapes the morning of September 12th and asks the sort of questions many Americans pretend they don't think about: If something doesn't affect you personally, does it affect you? Are your loved ones really more important than yourself? If you could, would you erase everything for the chance to try again--do it "right"--no wife, kids, responsibility?

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Set on September 12, 2001, The Mercy Seat continues Neil LaBute's unflinching fascination with the often-brutal realities of the war between the sexes. In a time of national tragedy, the world changes overnight. A man and a woman explore the choices now available to them in an existence different from the one they had lived just the day before. Can one be opportunistic in a time of universal selflessness?

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