A Question of Mercy: A Play Based on the Essay by Richard Selzer

David Rabe

12/2007 · Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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The Tony Award–winning playwright of Hurlyburly “confronts the timely topic of assisted suicide . . . an affirmation of dignity that rings clear and true” (Variety).
 
David Rabe is one of America’s finest dramatists. In A Question of Mercy, he explores the controversial and emotional issue of euthanasia, delving deep into the ties that bind friends and lovers. Thomas and Anthony are lovers struggling with Anthony’s final, exhausting battle with AIDS. Joined by their friend Susanah and a retired doctor, whose help Thomas has requested, they fashion a heartbreaking friendship as they work through the stages of a plan to relieve Anthony of his illness and his life. Rabe creates a passionate depiction of four people confronted with the reality of a loved one’s fight with death and a compelling dramatic event that poses the question: “What would you do?”
 
“A moving and enlightening experience.” —Backstage
 
“Completely gripping. This life and death tale questions the moral implications involved with assisted suicide, and the honor behind the action. A serious and provocative night at the theatre.” —Theasy
 
Praise for David Rabe
 
“Few contemporary dramatists have dealt with violence, physical and psychological, more impressively than Rabe.” —Kirkus Reviews
 
“A remarkable storyteller.” —Chicago Tribune
 
“Rabe’s mastery of dialogue is the equal of Pinter and Mamet put together . . . full of a measured Mafia formality played against Jacobean terrors, blood lust, horror and revenge raised to an unlikely poetry dazed by equally unlikely insights.” —The Boston Globe

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Born in Dubuque, Iowa, Rabe was educated at Loras College and Villanova. His service in Vietnam has had a major influence on his work, particularly in his early plays. In 1971 both The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel, which traces a soldier's life from basic training to an ugly and ironic death in Vietnam, and Sticks and Bones, a slightly absurdist play that combines broad satire of U.S. family life with a realistic portrayal of the suffering of a blind veteran, were produced at Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival. Rabe's other plays of the 1970s were also produced there. Streamers (1976), which won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, is the most notable of his Vietnam plays. Set in an army barracks, it is a powerful presentation of the destruction that can result from blind, uncontrolled rage. Hurlyburly (1985), which concerns the hollow lifestyle of a group of hip southern California men, began a long run on Broadway in 1984. As with many of Rabe's other plays, it explores the horrors that can result from distorted ideas of masculinity. Another recent play, Goose and Tomtom (1987), is a forceful drama about two small-time jewel thieves. In it, Rabe explores the theme of the illusory nature of reality.