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.
Neil LaBute was born in 1963 in Detroit, Michigan. He is the writer/director of the films In the Company of Men and Your Friends and Neighbors, and author of the stage-plays Bash, The Shape of Things (which he also adapted for the screen) and, most recently, The Mercy Seat. He has also directed the feature films Nurse Betty and Possession, the latter adapted from the novel by A. S. Byatt.
"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
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