"He was okay..."

It took me about three reads through of the play to fully grasp the gist of it. I had originally read it through and had thought it to be a rather light and airy display of the human condition and faltering relationship built upon lies and deceit. Upon my second read through, I had noticed one thing at the beginning of the actual publication; there was a quote from the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds song "The Mercy Seat." The song itself is a very dark and ominous song, it involves many of the elements of the play with the same name, more specifically the notion of self deprecation, forgiveness and mercy of sorts. The song itself is narrated by Nick Cave as a man being sentenced to death by electric chair. The mercy seat refers to a seat on the ark of the covenant where ones is judged. In the end the man claims that he has accepted his fate and is ready to die. Nick Cave is a prolific song writer, he is able to show a sense of innocence with the character he describes who eventually succumbs to the fact that he was wrong. I think LaBute really draws from the notion, in the sense that Ben is in denial that he has done something wrong, even though Abbey continually tells him that this is wrong, do what you think is right. Ben becomes conflicted and begins to think he is wrong in leaving his wife, and eventually succumbs to the his wrong doings and is ready to accept the consequences. This can be tied into the play. Ben is constantly sitting throughout the majority of the play and is constantly judged by both himself and Abby. It begins to drag for me and the dialogue becomes very predictable. I began to feel almost nothing for either characters for the sheer fact that they both seemed like horrible individuals. I was alright with Ben's character at the beginning of the play. He seemed like the intelligent, almost awkward slacker who is understandably distressed, but as events unfold, the reader discovers that he is indeed the father of two daughters. Leaving your wife under the suspicion of a tragedy is while indeed a horrible thing to do, the level of deplorability increases ten fold. The emotion seems rather lost in the attempts to show actually love between the two, it isn't believable. While Abby claims that she has something to lose, like a job or prestige, in reality the only person who has something to lose is Ben. He almost accepts his fate, but in reality leaving his wife would probably be one of the worst things he could do; hell, even financially.