Backstory carefully doled out in ‘Without Mercy’

The latest from prolific local playwright Patricia Milton centers on a family with more than a few problems: a gruesome disappearance, alcoholism, rehab, plus acute resentment between Joanna (Sylvia Kratins) and her daughter Bethany (Niki Yapo-Held).

“It looked like someone had broken into my house!” Bethany says.

All of a sudden, you know characters’ backstories without being able to trace exactly how.

Richard D. Harder directs the Off Broadway West production about an intriguing mystery and a complex mother-daughter relationship.