Review
Acts of Mercy
Rattlestick Theater
February 15, 2006
VanLoan
vanloan@nyconstage.org
Michael John Garces’ Acts of Mercy is subtitled passion-play. Passion is the operative word here. It is certainly passionately written and acted. It is also an incoherent mess. As the resident playwright at the New Dramatists, Garces knows how to shape a dramatic composition. The play is divided into fourteen scenes (The Stations of the Cross?) called Vespers. They are given titles such “clothing to the naked” or “administration of the sick”. This is of great benefit to the audience as it provides the only clue as to what is happening onstage …sometimes. We do know that a Cuban patriarch is dying and his three sons are hovering on the periphery. We learn they have had different mothers both of whom have been abused by their unrepentant father. Two of the sons are estranged from their father (prodigals?), they yearn to reconcile. While waiting for their father to die, both embark on separate evenings of debauchery.
One gathers that the rage and drunkenness and violence towards their women (sins of the father passed to the sons?) is meant to let us sympathize with their feelings over their father’s dying. It does not. It does not help matters that all the dialogue is delivered in a faux-Mametesque style of speech. The high decibel level is reached early and stays there for the next two hours. The entire production is overwrought and has the feel of a bad Spanish telenovella. Gia Forakis’ directs the piece with the thrust of a runaway train yet the pace just adds to the feverish, frenzied quality of the piece. As the ‘good’ son Andres Munar brings a sense of quiet sorrow and dignity to the proceedings for which one is very grateful. The only act of mercy of the evening is when the house lights come up.
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