MERCURY


No one does dark and twisted with quite the devilish glee of playwright Steve Yockey, proof positive of which can be seen in Mercury, a gloriously grizzly Road Theatre Company West Coast Premiere.

Meeghan Holaway stars as suburban housewife Pamela, none too pleased that her married neighbor Heather (Andrea Flowers) has chosen to end their top-secret illicit love affair, which leaves Pamela bound and determined to do something about it, even if that something is revenge.

Olive’s (Christina Carlisi) woes may seem trifling compared to Pamela’s, but you can hardly blame her for being vexed that the “friend” (Danny Lee Gomez as Brian) who’s visiting her gay upstairs neighbor (Justin Lawrence Barnes as Nick) is having other “friends” over to “do filthy things behind Nick’s back” whenever his boyfriend is over at the hospital visiting his comatose mother, who before suddenly falling ill just happened to have made Olive’s life a living hell by repeatedly taking up both parking places in their duplex.

Fortunately for those in need of a quick and final way to rid themselves of life’s little inconveniences, there’s a “curiosity shop” just around the corner where Alicia (Gloria Ines) and her husband Sam (Billy Baker) sell a variety of wares guaranteed do the deadly trick.

And that’s about all I can reveal of Mercury’s increasingly dark and twisted plot, except to mention that a bear has been seen going through neighborhood garbage and that the planet Mercury just might be in retrograde these days.

Like Yockey’s black and bloody fairy-tale-for-adults Wolves (a Celebration Theatre hit ten years ago), Mercury probably won’t be your squeamish maiden aunt’s cup of tea, but it most definitely is mine, particularly as directed to wickedly entertaining effect by Ann Hearn Tobolowsky and performed by a cast as razor-sharp as the knife Pamela keeps on the ready … and not just for chopping vegetables.

Holoway gives Pamela a delectably acerbic edge opposite the equally terrific Flowers’ helplessly, hopelessly torn-between-two-lovers Heather.

Tall, dark, and handsome duo Barnes and Gomez ignite plenty of romantic, sexual sparks as the sweet-hearted Nick and the devil-may-care (and scantily-clad) Brian.

Ines’s deceptively chipper Alicia is another winner as is Baker’s blood-soaked, buns-baring, late-arriving Sam.

 Last but not least, Carlisi steals every scene she’s in as the deceptively good-natured Olive, a seemingly harmless woman who has made passive aggression an art.

Katrina Coulourides’s ingeniously revolving set meticulously decorated with a gazillion knick-knacks takes us from Pamela’s kitchen to Alicia’s curiosity shop to Brian’s living room to a location best left to your imagination, all of which have been lit to dramatic perfection by Derrick McDaniel.

Jenna Bergstraesser’s just-right costumes, David B. Marling’s horror-enhancing sound design, Susie Lever’s script-mandated props, and Ben Rock’s dazzling eleventh-hour projections are everything a playwright or playgoer could wish for, and Brian Graves’ fight choreography earns its own high marks for some gloriously grisly stage violence.

Mercury is produced by Danna Hyams and Taylor Gilbert. Lara Gold is assistant director. Maurie Gonzalez is production stage manager. Darryl Johnson is production coordinator. David Elzer is publicist.

Alternate cast performances feature Hayden Bishop, Nancy Fassett, Maurice J. Irvin, Jacqueline Misaye, Jordan Moore, Ray Paolantonio, and Brittany Visser.

Multi-million-dollar TV series like HBO’s The Flight Attendant and the upcoming Dead Boy Detectives have showcased Steve Yockey’s unique gifts on a grander Grand Guignol scale.

Mercury (like Wolves, The Fisherman’s Wife, and Very Still And Hard To See before it) proves the prolific playwright equally adept on a much smaller budget at mixing horror and hilarity and blood and gore to hellishly entertaining effect.

The Road Theatre, NoHo Senior Arts Colony, 10747 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood.
www.RoadTheatre.org

–Steven Stanley
January 12, 2024
Photos: Lizzy Kimball

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