Photo Credit: Allison Calteux
Picture the scene: A room, rather fancy, looking over New York City. Two people, a man and a woman: He seems shocked; she tries to make him talk. On TV, news of the attack on the World Trade Center plays. It is Sept. 12, 2001, and America is still reeling in shock from the terrorist attack that would change the course of history. But this is not the topic here; this play is about a lovers’ quarrel, using the tragic event as mere backdrop.
Outskirts Theatre Company, which is staging The Mercy Seat, much like the play itself, acts coyly with the exact circumstances surrounding the conundrum the characters are struggling with. “September 12, 2001. 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,” Outskirts reveals. For much of the intermissionless 75-minute show, the audience is also left to guess. So all we shall reveal here is that the man sees in the tragedy a meal ticket for himself and his lover.
Morals and relationship dynamics are exposed as the two of them argue over the course of action about their feelings, the people they knew in the towers and how they should cope with all of it. The show could be summed up as a one massive domestic dispute, but it would be a disservice to the subtle writing by playwright Neil LaBute, who goes in wildly unexpected directions, as well as Seth K. Hale and Carrie Gray’s acting prowess.
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As Ben and Abby, Hale and Gray display a wide range of raw, intense emotions masterfully. With very little in the way of décor, lighting or music, the two actors carry the whole show on nothing but their own ability to blend with their exceptionally twisted and complex characters. What they offer us is nothing short of a free dive into some of the recesses of the human psyche and the mental blocks that we impose on ourselves.
Through Sunday, Jan. 12, at the Underground Collaborative, 161 W. Wisconsin Ave.
