Mercy Seat, The: A Play

New
Paperback
2003
$17.49

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?

Synopsis

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?

$17.49

Quantity

20+ in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 90
Edition: Main
Publisher: FSG Adult
Published: 06 Nov 2003
ISBN 10: 0571211380
ISBN 13: 9780571211388
Book Overview: The Mercy Seat by Neil LaBute presents the brutal realities of the war between the sexes, and explores whether one can be truly opportunistic in a time of universal selflessness.

Media Reviews

There is no playwright on the planet these days who is writing better than Neil LaBute . . . The Mercy Seat is . . . the work of a master. --John Lahr
, The New Yorker

An intelligent and thought-provoking drama that casts a less-than-glowing light on man's dark side in the face of disaster . . . The play's energy lies in LaBute's trademark scathing dialogue. --Robert Dominguez, Daily News

Though set in the cold, gray light of morning in a downtown loft with inescapable views of the vacuum left by the twin towers, The Mercy Seat really occurs in one of those feverish nights of the soul in which men and women lock in vicious sexual combat, as in Strindberg's Dance of Death and Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? --Ben Brantley, The New York Times

[A] powerful drama . . . LaBute shows a true master's hand in gliding us amid the shoals and reefs of a mined relationship. --Donald Lyons, New York Post

Uncomfortable yet fascinating . . . The Mercy Seat makes for provocative theater --sharp, compelling and more than a little chilling.

LaBute's intriguing . . . new play . . . is most compelling when it is daring to look into [a] character's heart to explore the way self-interest, given the opportunity, can swamp all our nobler instincts. --Charles Isherwood, Variety

In The Mercy Seat . . . LaBute has given us his most compelling portrait of male inner turmoil. --Brendan Lemon, Financial Times

LaBute [is] the dark shining star of stage and film morality. --Linda Winer, Newsday

Sharply funny and incisive Seat is not a response to September 11, but a response to the response to September 11--an emotionally jarring consideration of the self-serving exploitation of tragedy for personal gain . . . Perhaps it's time we stop thinking of LaBute as a mere provocateur, a label that condescends to an artist of grand ambition and a nimble facility with language. With this gripping . . . new drama, he probes deeper than he ever has before. --Jason Zinoman, TimeOut New York

A nihilistic yet brutally honest work . . . As complex and unfathomable as human motivations . . . The Mercy Seat is haunting. --David A. Rosenberg, Backstage

LaBute risks offending contemporary sensibilities by using a historic tragedy as his turning point for a drama regarding a morally empty American . . . [The Mercy Seat is] controversial and compelling. --Michael Sommers, The Star-Ledger

LaBute . . . is holding up a pitiless mirror to ourselves. We may not like what we see, but we can't deny that--if only in some dark corner of our soul--it is there. --Jacques le Sourd, The Journal News

Author Bio

Neil LaBute received his Master of Fine Arts degree in dramatic writing from New York University and was the recipient of a literary fellowship to study at the Royal Court Theatre, London. He also attended the Sundance Institute's Playwrights Lab and is the Playwright-in- Residence with MCC Theatre in New York City. LaBute's plays include: bash: latter-day plays, The Shape of Things, The Mercy Seat, The Distance From Here, Autobahn, Fat Pig (Olivier Award nominated for Best Comedy), Some Girl(s), This Is How It Goes, Wrecks, Filthy Talk for Troubled Times, In a Dark Dark House, Reasons to Be Pretty (Tony Award nominated for Best Play) and The Break of Noon. In the spring of 2011 his play In a Forest, Dark and Deep premiered in London's West End. LaBute is also the author of Seconds of Pleasure, a collection of short fiction which was published by Grove Atlantic. His films include In the Company of Men (New York Critics' Circle Award for Best First Feature and the Filmmaker Trophy at the Sundance Film Festival), Your Friends and Neighbors, Nurse Betty, Possession, The Shape of Things, a film adaptation of his play of the same title, The Wicker Man, Lakeview Terrace and Death at a Funeral.