"BOOK OF MERCY" at Chicago Dramatists
BY LUCIA MAURO
Carson Grace Becker, a local playwright capable of slicing through her own mystical-poetic language with a freshly sharpened lean wit, is best known for her haunting drama, "A Mislaid Heaven" (which Famous Door Theatre premiered in 1997). A writer with keen observational skills and a talent for conveying unselfconscious detail, Becker has the potential to travel far in her art. But with her latest work, "Book of Mercy" --receiving its world premiere at Chicago Dramatists (where she is a resident playwright) – Becker has taken a miscalculated creative detour.
This Eastern philosophically based play has all the makings of a mesmerizing book. But it has not yet realized its dramatic potential. And "Book of Mercy," after all, is supposed to be a play. The excessive expository nature of the script is mirrored in the characters’ reliance on a young woman’s journal. In fact, their reading of the diary (conveniently in chronological order, even though they appear to open to pages at random) advances the plot rather than the dialogue. The thrill of suspense, especially in this abstract mystery, often gets thwarted by a character posing a straightforward question and receiving a perfunctory explanation.
"Book of Mercy" takes place at an upscale drug rehabilitation clinic, where wealthy patient Stella is being treated for substance abuse. While there, besides moving her luxurious possessions into her small room, Stella tries to come to terms with the strange death of her adult daughter, Mercy. Apparently, Mercy was bitten by a snake during a sudden trip to India.
We later learn more details about the events leading up to Mercy’s unsettling demise (from her diary, of course) and find out that this hyper-sensitive young poet with psychic qualities may have been trying to escape an impending marriage. We also realize that Mercy exists in a metaphysical realm – swaying between the virtue for which she is named and an inexplicable cosmic conundrum.
Unfortunately, Becker does not find a consistent or engaging vehicle for unveiling her stimulating but vague symbols. In fact, despite Stella’s excessive talk of visions, the play is firmly planted on literal ground. Mercy, who should be the dominant presence felt throughout the story regardless of her invisibility, is rendered non-existent by the characters’ self-absorbed travails.
Director Ann Filmer’s staging, while wrapped in an air of uneasy mystery, tends to get backed into a cramped corner. The play is peopled by haphazard figures, whose awkward relationships feel forced. It’s not clear or believable why they are together in Stella’s room. And there are simply inherent structural flaws. Characters, especially Stella’s troubled shrink David, go off on tangents about the origins of the universe. A subplot about a priceless Bordeaux – the only remaining bottle from a Nazi raid on a French vineyard – ultimately serves as a weak and unrealized plot twist.
Stella, more an eccentric doyenne than a multidimensional woman with a tortured conscience, flits about her antique- and trinket-laden room reminiscing with her psychiatrist and best friend David (one would think that might be a conflict of interest). They dole out a few cliched morsels on how many homes Stella and her obscenely wealthy producer/ex-husband Vincent had and their wild parties. Then the downtrodden David laments his lover Paul’s drug addiction. Paul, an actor, can’t seem to find decent work, except a voiceover gig for a "Christian Right sci-fi serial" (a phrase that sounds funny but obviously goes for the quick, absurd joke.)
The plot is further muddled when Vincent comes to visit Stella. After the requisite verbal sparring, Vincent’s much-younger fiance, Beth, barges into the room. One of the most cartoonish representations of an ego-mongering Hollywood type (Beth is a psychotically aggressive screenwriter), Beth threatens to eclipse Stella’s dreamy ponderings about Mercy.
Another disturbing segment involves the rehab center’s mentally imbalanced nurse’s aid, Tina, whom Stella has befriended. Tina, smothered by her over-protective parents, borrows Stella’s fancy clothes and goes on trysts with her boyfriend (who turns out to be blind). They make love in a tree opposite Stella’s window, implying a certain titillating voyeurism. But I was simply baffled by this bizarre and gratuitous diversion – a feeling that escalated when Paul (who appears after David and Vincent bail him out of jail for drug possession) pretends to be a choo-choo train.
It’s as if "Book of Mercy" is hanging by the threads of its frayed spine. The characters seem to be spilling out of the contents and landing in curious situations prompted by their quirky, newfound connections to each other. Their links to each other remain confusing. Yet the playwright then ties up everything in a neat little package – going so far as to explain the gold wrap Mercy bought for her mother in India or the Indian mystical tattoo Beth sports on her arm.
So we have a discombobulating combination of loose ends that get formulaically sutured and cleaned up – leaving us with both too much information and not enough, or not enough information in the right places.
When Becker inserts a Nostradamus-like prediction of Lower Manhattan engulfed in flames and two towers falling, the effect is shockingly hokey and enraging.
Because of the play’s disjointed nature, the production totters about in clumsy affectation. Suzanne Petri capitalizes on Stella’s diva-esque qualities rather than plumbing her character’s more ambiguous inner depths. She walks with pointed, turned-out toes as if she’s making an entrance in a ballet – and comes very close to Norma Desmond-like desperation. Richard Henzel as Vincent (the only character who edges toward something of a positive transformation) drastically underplays his role, creating an operatically divergent divide between him and Stella.
As the haughty and harsh Beth, Amy Rafa struggles to find a believable and sympathetic middle ground. Rhys W. Lovell retains a world-weary blandness as David – diametrically opposed to Gregory Johnson’s hyperactive Paul. And Bethany Perkins has scant emotional options as the pointlessly beleaguered Tina.
Joey Wade’s appropriately cluttered set reflects Stella’s mental chaos. It also underscores the script’s extraneous and misguided stories. This may seem like a trivial concern but, for someone as wealthy as Stella, costume designer Michelle Lynette Bush has her decked out in some of the cheapest and tackiest outfits.
In terms of the script itself, Becker can shape "Book of Mercy" into an effective play through an intense streamlining of her story to its spiritual essence – perhaps even eliminating certain characters and giving key ones, like Stella and Vincent, more seasoned gravitas.•
"Book of Mercy" runs through November 3 at Chicago Dramatists, 1105 W. Chicago Ave. Tickets: $16-$20. Call 312-633-0630 or log onto www.chicagodramatists.org.
