Review: ‘Mercury’ is in extreme retrograde with characters out for blood

Set in a slightly strange Portland, Oregon, the script includes an element of magic as a means of exploring this idea: What would happen if we could make anyone who disagrees with us just vanish? Where we once had discourse and debate, now we just have loud, ongoing outrage that seeks to obliterate us. In the world of this play, its squabbling characters find more scorched earth than common ground.

The grievances between Yockey’s characters are extreme, however.

Photo by Casey Gardner Ford

Photo by Casey Gardner Ford

The show opens in the suburban kitchen of Pamela (Suehyla E. Young), who is arranging cacti and drinking scotch in the middle of the morning. Her prim neighbor, Heather (Kate Donadio MacQueen), who recently ended an extramarital affair, comes over looking for her missing dog, suspecting the prickly Pamela of stealing it. The conversation devolves quickly, and there is an undercurrent of menace in the scene.

Meanwhile, in a curiosity shop, a conservative woman named Olive (Carolyn Cook) asks a strange, otherworldly clerk named Alicia (Donna Lobello) for a remedy to the problem she’s having with her new gay neighbors Nick (Tyshawn Gooden) and Brian (Matthew Busch). Alicia gives Olive a magic book, which sets off a bonkers chain of events involving a creepy, blood-soaked man named Sam (Louis Kyper), a stray grizzly bear, Mercury in retrograde, knives and a hacksaw.

The laughs come regularly, even when the show takes very weird turns. The cast seems to be having a ball with this wild, broad material.

The script uses horror and sci-fi elements as a way to analyze the problems of modern society, pushed to the most absurd extremes — and it works brilliantly. Yockey’s work is inventive and surprising, never preachy or overtly political. And, to his credit, it’s relatively easy to follow what’s happening, even when the characters’ narratives all go to hell.

Design elements of note include the ominous, jump-scare noises provided by sound designer Dan Bauman, the creepy lighting effects by David Reingold, the amazing grizzly bear prop built by Ryan Bradburn and Alicia’s Rosie the Riveter-period costume by Jordan Jaked Carrier.

Photo by Casey Gardner Ford

Photo by Casey Gardner Ford

Young’s work as the heartbroken, acidic Pamela is layered and amusing, while MacQueen makes her character sympathetic and human, though she has a very composed facade. Busch and Gooden have nice chemistry. Cook’s Olive takes what could’ve been a nosy neighbor stereotype and infuses it with entitlement, selfishness and attitude. Lobello and Kyper strike the right notes in two of the strangest parts.

Melissa Foulger’s direction keeps things at a steady pace, emphasizing the humor so things never feel too daunting. The show runs without intermission and features partial nudity and suggestions of animal cruelty, so be mindful of your comfort level with such things.

Atlanta is lucky to claim Yockey as one of its own, and “Mercury” is a daring, satisfying work.

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Benjamin Carr is an ArtsATL editor-at-large who has contributed to the publication since 2019 and a member of the American Theatre Critics Association, the Dramatists Guild, the Atlanta Press Club and the Horror Writers Association. His writing has been featured in podcasts for iHeartMedia, onstage as part of the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival and online in The Guardian. His debut novel, Impacted, was published by The Story Plant.

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